Recently there was a reference to the current trade negotiations in the New York Times, which reported: “In an op-ed article in The Washington Post on Thursday, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, who enjoys strong backing with the party’s most liberal members, argued that the Trans-Pacific Partnership would undermine American sovereignty by allowing foreign companies to challenge United States laws”. (It’s fair enough for an American politician to be concerned about the effect of dispute settlement on the US; you can’t expect her to fight the fight for other countries).
But my point is that that’s it. Nothing more from the NYT. No explanation of the background or why TTIP would undermine US or any other nation’s law. The article went straight on to talk about how the agreement would “help American workers by opening markets for US products and improve environmental and labor standards around the world”. Believe that and you believe in the Easter bunny. We are talking here about an article in virtually the only sort-of liberal American newspaper left: The New York Times.
Then on March 3rd, the NYT ran another leading article on the same subject, again concentrating on workers’ rights. Fair enough, but still not a word about the proposed clique of corporate lawyers over-riding the sovereignty of nations under the investment dispute provisions. Draw your own conclusions.
From 1959 to 2002 there were fewer than 100 ISDS claims against governments. But in 2012 alone there were 58. Among these were: a French company suing the Egyptian government for raising the minimum wage; Swedish company suing Germany for phasing out nuclear power after Fukushima; and Philip Morris suing Australia for insisting on plain packaging for cigarettes.
Obama is asking for “fast track” authority to conclude TTIP. If it gets it there will be an up and down vote in Congress and not a word of the treaty will then be allowed to be changed. And nobody will know, or have read, the full text of the treaty. It’s like a coup!
This is exactly the sort of thing conservatives should be opposing- threats to national sovereignty. I believe that some free-market reforms ought to be made, particularly in stagnant countries like France and Spain, but TTIP is completely the wrong way to do it. Free trade should not entail complex bureaucracies and extraterritorial legal systems. It ought to be simple. I’m not angry at conservatives, just disappointed. I’m also disappointed at the British and Americans for not voicing their opposition to this more. Most of the opposition is coming from Germany.
How right you are! I’m delighted that you are so up-to-date on it. I think it is a very sinister development, and all “secret”.
You’re right and wrong. It’s true that any true “conservative” should oppose the TTIP for some of the reasons you’ve given, but at the same time, “free trade” and “free markets” (a fantasy concept in any case) have led to this situation. “Conservatives” shoot themselves in the foot when they promote “free market” capitalism.
It’s ironic the Germans are complaining the most, since they themselves are major exploiters of smaller countries via systems just like this.
I’m happy it’s destroying national sovereignty, I just don’t like the fact corporations are more powerful than ever now.
The TTIP just proves corporations are now more powerful than national governments, and that capitalists basically rule the world. Someone predicted this like 150 years ago, forget his name, think he was from Germany…
The only solution (outside some world communist revolution 😉 would be more international regulations to counteract this, but even that seems like a distant goal now…