Campaign against ISDS is important for Climate & Environmental Policy

Human beings need more rights, corporations do not.

ISDS is one of the main reasons that People’s Climate Movement has called for scrutiny of international trade deals.
It was used under NAFTA by US companies to challenge Canadian environmental policies (e.g. declaring a moratorium on fracking in the St. Lawrence,) and used around the world to overrule environmental protections and initiatives.
(See key international cases, including 3 vs Canada.)

We applauded its removal from the US, Mexico, Canada agreement (at the insistence of the U.S. while Canada supported keeping it) but it is included in CETA and the new TPP, (the CPTPP, “Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.”)
And now there is a move to create a permanent global court where corporations can sue governments.
A European coalition is working to prevent it.

The information below is from stopisds.org/

ISDS – short for ‘Investor-State-Dispute-Settlement’ is an obscure parallel justice system only accessible to the super-rich.

Multinational companies have used this system to threaten governments that dare to stand up to them with claims of up to billions of euros.

Government policies that have been challenged using ISDS include:

• Regulating pollution levels on a coal power station
• Introducing health warnings on cigarettes
• Declaring a moratorium on fracking
• Halting a mine that would have destroyed whole communities
• Raising the minimum wage
• Freezing water tariffs to help the poor
• Stopping health insurers from making huge profit

And they don’t always have to win their case to get their way. For many countries, the mere threat of a huge claim can be enough to persuade them to back down and let the corporate fat cats win.

When millions of people across Europe rejected the EU-US trade agreement TTIP, many people learned about ISDS (which was part of the deal) and were very angry.

Now there are plans to scale-up ISDS by creating a permanent global court where corporations will sue states. The EU and member state governments want to do this by inserting it into new trade agreements. Their support for such an unfair toxic system must be challenged.

In order to stop ISDS we need to oppose these new deals and get rid of existing ones.Corporations and the super-rich do not need a separate system to protect their rights.

Human beings need more rights, corporations do not.