Inside the TPP and TTIP

Inside the TPP
1-11-2016    We collected data on the size and wealth of the foreign investors that have brought claims and received compensation due to ISDS. Our main findings are that the beneficiaries of ISDS, in the aggregate, have overwhelmingly been companies with more than USD1 billion in annual revenue – especially extra-large companies with more than USD10 billion – and individuals with more than USD100 million in net wealth. ISDS has produced monetary benefits primarily for those companies or individuals at the expense of respondent states. Incidentally, we also found that extra-large companies’ success rates in ISDS, especially at the merits stage, exceeded by a large margin the success rates of other claimants. It was evident that ISDS has also delivered substantial monetary benefits for the ISDS legal industry.  
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2713876
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2-29-16    Virtually all of the financial benefits of the ISDS have gone to the rich and powerful. Nearly 95 percent of all award money went to giant corporations or extremely wealthy individuals....The statistics in the Osgoode study are startling at times. Those "extra-large" corporations of $10 billion or more in revenue won 70.8 percent of the time, while others were only successful 42.2 percent of the time. They won in the "merits" stage of their hearings 82.9 percent of the time, versus a 57.9 percent success rate for everyone else.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/new-study-confirms-privat_b_9348238.html
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2-5-16   

Cartoon by Greg Perry.

"Our experience under the NAFTA demonstrates that neither our investment protection rules nor the ISDS mechanism constrain any level of government from regulating in the public interest.”

This is so demonstrably false as to shock even the most jaded cynic.  Does (Canadian Trade Minister) Freeland know what is being said in her name?  Since the North American Free Trade Agreement came into effect on Jan. 1, 1994, Canada has been the target of 35 investor-state claims under the agreement.  Nearly two-thirds involved challenges to environmental protection or resource management laws or regulations.  Canada has already paid out more than $170 million in damages in six cases (lost or settled) and abandoned most of the “offending” legislation and regulations.  We face additional corporate claims totalling more than $6 billion in potential penalties for NAFTA “violations” such as the Quebec government’s decision to ban fracking under the St. Lawrence River.  By far the biggest concern of critics (including Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz) is the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provision.  This allows corporations to claim damages if they believe a government’s laws or regulations unfairly harm their interests or hurt profits.    http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2016/02/05/Chrystia-Freeland-Bureaucrat-Bubble/

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Nick Dearden, the director of Global Justice Now said: 
“Under the pretence of ‘breaking from’ the old corporate court system known as ISDS, the (E.U.) Commission is actually trying to create a permanent court for big business. Far from preventing corporations bringing cases against the British government, this proposal makes it easier for them to do so. While pretending to iron out procedural problems, the Commission has created a monster which will become a reality if this treaty goes through."

... Corporate Europe Observatory and a coalition of other groups from across Europe say:

• The number of investor-state cases, as well as the sum of money involved, has skyrocketed over the last two decades
• The last two decades have seen billion-dollar investor lawsuits against the alleged damage to corporate profit of legislation and government measures in the public interest.
• The EU’s ‘new’ ISDS model (re-labelled ICS) is as dangerous for democracy, public interest law, and public money as the ‘old’ model enshrined in the EU-Canada trade agreement CETA.
• Investor claims against non-discriminatory and lawful measures to protect health, the environment, and other public interests would be possible under the new EU proposal.
• Under the EU proposal, billions in taxpayers’ money could be paid to corporations, including for future lost profits that they hypothetically could have earned.
• The EU proposal increases the risk of costly lawsuits against public interest measures as it arguably grants investors even more rights than many existing investment treaties
• If the US-EU trade agreement TTIP included the proposed investor rights, liability and financial risks would multiply for EU member states and far exceed those posed by any existing treaty signed by them
• Under the EU proposal, transnational companies could even sue their own governments           http://www.globaljustice.org.uk/news/2016/feb/29/new-system-corporate-courts-canada-eu-trade-deal-condemned-putting-lipstick-pig
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• CAN YOU FIND ONE SINGLE GOVERNMENT ON THIS PLANET THAT IS AGAINST TTP OR TTIP?  I CANNOT.