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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNAFTA's ISDS: Why Canada Is One of the Most Sued Countries in the World
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/10/23/naftas-isds-why-canada-one-most-sued-countries-worldNAFTA, the free trade deal between Canada, the USA and Mexico that came into effect in 1994, was the first trade deal among developed countries to include an investor-state provision. It grants investors of the continent the right to sue one anothers governments without first pursuing legal action through the countrys legal system. Before NAFTA, ISDS provisions were only negotiated between developed and undeveloped countries.
Ethyl, a U.S. chemical corporation, successfully challenged a Canadian ban on imports of its gasoline that contained MMT, an additive that is a suspected neurotoxin. The Canadian government repealed the ban and paid the company $13 million (approximately 8.8 million) for its loss of revenue.
S.D. Myers, a U.S. waste disposal firm, challenged a similar ban on the export of toxic PCB waste. Canada paid the company over $6 million (approximately 4 million).
A NAFTA panel ordered the Canadian government to pay Exxon-Mobil, the worlds largest oil and gas company, $17.3 million (approximately 11.6 million) when the company challenged government guidelines that investors in offshore exploration in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador where the company is heavily involved must invest in local research and development.
New Jersey-based Bilcon Construction is demanding $300,000 (approximately 200,000) in damages from the Canadian government after winning a NAFTA challenge when its plan to build a massive quarry and marine terminal in an environmentally sensitive area of Nova Scotia and ship basalt aggregate through the Bay of Fundy, site of the highest tides in the world, was rejected by an environmental assessment panel.
Chemical giant Dow AgroSciences used NAFTA to force the province of Quebec, after it banned 2,4-D, a pesticide that the Natural Resources Defence Council says has been linked in many studies to cancer and cell damage, to publicly acknowledge that the chemical does not pose an unacceptable risk to human health, a position the government had previously held.
The Canadian government paid American pulp and paper giant AbitibiBowater $130 million (approximately 88 million) after the company successfully used NAFTA to claim compensation for the water and timber rights it left behind when it abandoned its operations in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador after 100 years, leaving the workers with unpaid pensions. This challenge is particularly disturbing because it gives a foreign investor the right to claim compensation for the actual resources it used while operating in another jurisdiction.
Mesa Power Group, an energy company owned by Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens, is claiming $775 million (approximately 523 million) in a challenge to the province of Ontarios Green Energy Act, which gives preferential access to local wind farm operators.
Lone Pine, a Canadian energy company, is suing the Canadian government through its American affiliate for $250 million (approximately 152 million) because the province of Quebec introduced a temporary moratorium on all fracking activities under the St. Lawrence River until further studies are completed. This challenge is concerning because it involves a domestic company using a foreign subsidiary to sue its own government.
Eli Lilly, a U.S. pharmaceutical giant, is suing Canada for $500 million (approximately 337 million) after three levels of courts in Canada denied it a patent extension on one of its products. This case is particularly disturbing because it challenges Canadian laws as interpreted by Canadian courts and represents a new frontier for ISDS challenges
LiberalArkie
(15,728 posts)tecelote
(5,122 posts)uawchild
(2,208 posts)SharonAnn
(13,778 posts)Was no one listening (or reading) back then?
When corporations can sue (and win) to have impunity from their actions that damage/injure citizens of a country, then the concept of a sovereign nation no longer exists.
It's all corporate rule.
Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)And be noisy about it, and talk up the ISDS, the economic costs and environmental damage to Canada resulting therefrom, and the ISDS provisions in the TPP.
djean111
(14,255 posts)The "gold standard" - for corporations, not for the rest of us.
pampango
(24,692 posts)From Japan: TPP sets limit on corporate suits
The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact limits the period for foreign companies to file damages lawsuits against host states over sudden regulatory changes to 3½ years, Jiji Press learned Wednesday.
The limit, included in a TPP provision on investor-state dispute settlement, is designed to prevent abuse of litigation by multinational businesses. ISDS gives the legal basis for foreign businesses to challenge sudden changes in host country regulations.
Japan and the United States had pushed for the introduction of ISDS in an effort to help their companies go overseas. They successfully persuaded Australia and other reluctant countries by proposing the limit.
The ISDS provision allows member governments to introduce regulations about medical care and the environment at their own discretion. The provision also states that member governments will not be forced to change regulations even if they lose lawsuits from foreign businesses.
http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0002510148
Who knows whether the author of this article has access to the unreleased TPP text. If not, it is just so much speculation.
If - a big IF - "member governments will not be forced to change regulations even if they lose lawsuits from foreign businesses" - that would be a big deal and a significant change from NAFTA rules on ISDS.
fasttense
(17,301 posts)They were Not hypothetical, they actually happened.
It's a very bad idea to think that doing the samething over and over again is going to make it better. Why do corprations have to have special courts any way? Why not give environmental groups special courts? Why not give Unions special courts? What is so awful about our legal system that corporation get a separate one?
If corporations are people, then they should use the people's courts too.
It's a bad idea and should NOT be allowed.
-none
(1,884 posts)That way they do not have to deal with the actual law as written and enforced in the sunlight. They can then interpret the law as they see fit under cover of the back room. Star Chambers come to mind.
dragonlady
(3,577 posts)TPP would completely destroy our sovereignty regarding environmental, health, justice, and any other regulations you could name. If it hurt a corporation's profits, it would have to go.
Omaha Steve
(99,700 posts)Labor fought it just like it has TPP this year.
OS
jwirr
(39,215 posts)the TPP - think again.
What Clinton did by passing NAFTA and what President Obama is doing with TPP is giving the corporations the power to override any nation that they so not agree with.
Corporations do not need any more power.
stillwaiting
(3,795 posts)a case or been adversely impacted by ISDS.
It shows such a lack of care or concern for how this provision gets wielded in other countries. Completely U.S.-centric thinking and complete lack of care for other countries (thinking and behavior typically found within the Republican Party). Plays right in to the stereotype that so many other countries have about self absorbed Americans (which is NOT good for us).
And, it shows a huge amount of naiveté (if these people are actually arguing in good faith) to believe that ISDS would never get used (either openly and through their corporate courts OR behind closed doors/out of the public eye in heavy handed negotiations) effectively in the U.S. to advance corporate interests over public concerns and well-being.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)And a government-mandated work program for lawyers.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)revenue.
fasttense
(17,301 posts)Where is the evidence that neoliberal trade agreements bring jobs and tax revenue?
They may bring factory jobs to abuse labor countries where employees are routinely under paid, where there are minimal labor laws and where safety is not a concern. But they don't do anything for countries with some concern for their citizen workforce or environment.
And show me where corporations paid fair taxes as compared to what an average citizen pays.
Do I really need to explain to you how politicians frequently go against the best interest and the wishes of the majority of their own citizens?
laundry_queen
(8,646 posts)Had a study group on free trade agreements when I was in business school. Essentially, free trade agreements always result in a decline in well paying jobs. Countries that don't sign as many free trade agreements have better economies overall. A little bit of isolationism is actually preferable. Free trade agreements only help the corporations - and the reason politicians want these trade agreements is that their donors want them.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)Or to Mexicans who just got a job at Audi for $8/hour vs. the $0.50 they were making before.
laundry_queen
(8,646 posts)Keep up with your delusions, it's always entertaining.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)they be built here. You seem to think people are going to buy American cars if "foreign" cars were not built here. Not true.
American car makers had a captive market 50 years ago, until people found there were better and more economical foreign cars than the crummy gas guzzlers built here.
laundry_queen
(8,646 posts)Deny it all you want.
People will buy foreign cars if they want them whether they are made in the US or not, if they are willing to pay the price. Of course if they were more expensive fewer people would buy them. Which would support the US auto industry, keeping well paying jobs for people who wouldn't be able to have a good job otherwise, either because of location or lack of education. With better jobs, those people spend more money than if they were living on a non-union wage, boosting the economy overall.
And I disagree that American car makers suck (let me tell you here in Canada how many foreign cars suck in the cold). For a brief period of time 'reliability' was the competitive advantage for non-US car makers which made people pay more for foreign cars even before free trade. However, the tide is turning on that. American car makers are taking note and making better vehicles. Toyota and volkswagon not so much. It's a typical corporate cycle. All companies go through it. If there was no free trade at all, there would still be corporate cycles, new companies, innovation etc.
fasttense
(17,301 posts)How do you know those huge corporations wouldn't still be here or not? How do you know an American company wouldn't be there in their stead paying decent Union wages? How do you know some other American business wouldn't have developed and evolved if they didn't have to compete with huge corporations from all over the world?
How do you know if the Mexican wants that awful factory job? How do you know he wouldn't prefer to be back on the farm making a living surrounded by his family? How do you know if that Mexican would prefer to be his own boss, run his own farm, set his own work schedule? But he can NOT make a living off his farm anymore because of the US factory farms undercutting his prices thanks to NAFTA. So now he has to be a slave worker to Audi for a mere $8 an hour.
pampango
(24,692 posts)That is not true of Germany, Sweden and many other progressive countries. They all have more trade and more 'free trade' than we have in the US. And they have stronger unions and middle classes than we have.
laundry_queen
(8,646 posts)At all. It has everything to do with better education, a fair media and a less corrupt government.
Not to mention most of their free trade agreements are with comparable countries, not cheap labor countries.
Babel_17
(5,400 posts)Canada isn't a direct democracy, their situation is similar to ours.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)agreements since 1959.
Fact is, companies are not going to invest in other countries without some assurance they will be treated like the country's companies. And the countries know it.
The tribunal arbiters are 3 people -- often professors knowledgable in the area. One is selected by the company (bad, bad, bad); one by the country; and one by mutual agreement between the country and company. Sounds pretty fair to me.
And, the tribunals don't change laws, just award damages. Read the actual details to many of the cases cited above. Often the country enticed the company to build big facilities, then did something to make the facility worthless, and often awarded the project to a local firm. That's not exactly fair. Just tell them upfront their company can't come there.
Again, all these countries clamoring to sign these agreements aren't corrupt.
Babel_17
(5,400 posts)That was my point, fwiw.
fasttense
(17,301 posts)But the truth is we really don't need VW investing in the US. What happened to all our automobile corporations? Why don't they invest in the US? Why can't American companies evolve and develop in the US to fill the niche of these wealth sucking foreign corporations have taken over?
Tribunal arbiters are corporate lawyers who use to work for the same corporations that are appearing in front of them. There are no restrictions on who these lawyer are, there are no conflict of interest regulations. And guess what? They have a revolving door much like our Fed and big bank employees.
If anyone really believes awarding damages will not change laws then I've got a bridge I want to sell you. The who freaking purpose of awarding damages is to Change The Behavior that led to the awarding of damages. When it involves entire nations that translates into LAWS CHANGING.
Again, I tell you the oligarchs of this world, the uber rich who own and control most all the corporations (about 300 people) are clamoring for these agreements. The average citizen not so much. That's why you have protests marches against these corporate give aways all over the world.
polly7
(20,582 posts)Hoyt
(54,770 posts)Last edited Tue Oct 27, 2015, 06:07 PM - Edit history (1)
taste changed.
-none
(1,884 posts)Harper idolized Bush the Lesser.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)eridani
(51,907 posts)The 1% or the 99%?
polly7
(20,582 posts)We know how we've already made out under NAFTA as well as how horrible it's been for Mexico. We do read and see just what's at stake under these new agreements. There have been protests here against them for ages.
Do you have some kind of poll showing how 'Canada' (which I assumes means all of us) begged to be part of the TPP?
polly7
(20,582 posts)Last edited Wed Oct 28, 2015, 03:24 AM - Edit history (3)
(We also did not beg to be part of the TPP or any other 'free' trade agreement.)
We suffer from many of the same effects of it that you do, why wouldn't we?:
Despite the fact that NAFTA has outsourced and continues to outsource U.S. jobs beyond our borders, President Obama has shown no indication of ending U.S. ties with the agreement. Quite the contrary. He is instead signing us up for even more free trade agreements!
NAFTA has resulted in the decimation of our manufacturing base because, when it costs more to produce here in the United States than it does in Mexico, why would businesses choose to manufacture in the U.S.? With even more free trade agreements like the TPP and TTIP, Americans can expect to see further destruction to our manufacturing sector, which translates to even more job losses!
NAFTA actually encourages manufacturers to operate outside of the United States, and they take our jobs with them. It uses the enticement of lower wage rates, non-existent environmental standards, and free trade without restrictions as bait. As a result, there are fewer jobs and an American market drowning in foreign-made goods.
http://economyincrisis.org/content/35820
As well as:
http://cwf.ca/pdf-docs/publications/Our_Water_and_NAFTA_July_2011.pdf
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/blogs/science-matters/2015/01/canada-is-trading-away-its-environmental-rights/
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/01/14/canada-sued-investor-state-dispute-ccpa_n_6471460.html
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/01/13/canada_being_sued_for_billions_under_nafta_investor_protections.html
After 20 Years, NAFTA Leaves Mexicos Economy in Ruins
from truthdig:
Posted on Jan 9, 2014
By Sonali Kolhatkar
Twenty years ago, on Jan. 1, 1994, a trade deal championed by Democratic President Bill Clinton went into effect. The North American Free Trade Agreement was meant to integrate the economies of the United States, Canada and Mexico by breaking down trade barriers among them, creating jobs and closing the wage gap between the U.S. and Mexico.
What in fact happened under NAFTA was that heavily subsidized U.S. corn flooded the Mexican market, putting millions of farmers out of work. Multinational corporations opened up factories creating low-wage jobs at the expense of organized labor and the environment. This, in turn, drove waves of migration north.
Meanwhile, corporate profits soared, and Mexico boasted the richest man in the world, Carlos Slim. Walmart and Krispy Kreme conquered Mexico, and ordinary Mexicans had access to the same consumer goods as their neighbors to the north. The economies of all three nations, measured only by GDP rather than jobs or wages, were pronounced grand successes, even though the U.S. and Canada disproportionately reaped more financial benefits.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., manufacturing jobs fell dramatically and organized labor lost even more clout. The Great Recession of 2008 worsened the downward trend, especially for Mexicans. Mexicos economy, tied intimately to the U.S. because of NAFTA, suffered more than any other country in Latin America. .........................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/after_20_years_nafta_leaves_mexicos_economy_in_ruins_20140109
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024317810
How NAFTA Unleashed the Violence in Mexico
By Victor M. Quintana | 7 / February / 2014
The Mexican countryside is not the same twenty years after the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Rural Mexico is on fire, and not just because of the bad guysthe drug cartels and groups of hit men and thugs.
Criminal violence is not the only kind of violence, nor is it the factor that unleashed the humanitarian crisis in so many parts of rural Mexico. The drastic transformation of public agricultural policiesbrought about by structural adjustment programs and the trade opening whose crowning moment was the passage of NAFTAgenerated the conditions for the emergence of multiple forms of violence in the Mexican countryside.
Mexican presidents since 1983 pushed through a series of economic adjustment polices, including the expulsion of all seasonal farmers from the rural credit system. The price of fuel shot up: in 1983, a liter of gas cost 1.36 pesos; now it is more than 12 pesos. Prices began to drip for crops produced by small farmers since guarantee prices were eliminated. New subsidies were created, like Procampo, but these went mostly to large producers.
In spite of many warnings from farmer organization and researchers, NAFTA was signed when Mexican basic grains producers, especially peasants and medium-sized producers, could not competein terms of climatic conditions or subsidies or technology or governmental support programwith the most powerful agriculture in the world.
Without being able to compete with U.S. agriculture under the terms of the trade opening, hundreds of thousands of peasant groups went broke. Migration to the cities and the United States shot up. According to the Ministry of Labor, since 1994 1,780,000 people left the countryside. The Ministry of Social Development found that each day an average of 600 peasant farmers leave the countryside. Rural communities are being left without young men, converted into populations of women, children and old people. Community life has broken down; many town organizations have closed down. This is violence. Silent, but real.
More:
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/11427
http://www.democraticunderground.com/110832763
These agreements are garbage, and I have no idea why our gov'ts keep creating new ones that allow overruling laws, except that corporations must be valued above all else. People are just tools now to keep them running.
NAFTA Is Starving Mexico
Free trade has starved Mexico and stuffed transnational corporations.
As the blood-spattered violence of the drug war takes over the headlines, many Mexican men, women, and children confront the slow and silent violence of starvation. The latest reports show that the number of people living in food poverty (the inability to purchase the basic food basket) rose from 18 million in 2008 to 20 million by late 2010.
About one-fifth of Mexican children currently suffer from malnutrition. An innovative measurement applied by the National Institute for Nutrition registers a daily count of 728,909 malnourished children under five for October 18, 2011. Government statistics report that 25 percent of the population does not have access to basic food.
A 2008 NAFTA tribunal ruled that Mexico had to pay $58.4 million to CPI. The government paid up on January 25, 2011. CPI posted $3.7 billion dollars in net sales the year of the decision. The fine paid by the Mexican government could have provided a years worth of the basic food basket to more than 50,000 poor families.
http://fpif.org/nafta_is_starving_mexico/
How NAFTA Drove Mexicans into Poverty and Sparked the Zapatista Revolt
By EDELO, Creative Time Reports
The North American Free Trade Agreement, passed 20 years ago, has resulted in increased emigration, hunger and poverty (with Video)
December 30, 2013
In light of the 20th anniversary of NAFTAs implementation and the Zapatista uprising, we set out to explore both the positive and negative effects of the international treaty. The poverty caused by NAFTA, and the waves of violence, forced migration and environmental disasters it has precipitated, should not be understated. The republic of Mexico is under threat from multinational corporations like the Canadian mining company Blackfire Explorations, which is threatening to sue the state of Chiapas for $800 million under NAFTA Chapter 11 because its government closed a Blackfire barite mine after pressure from local environmental activists like Mariano Abarca Roblero, who was murdered in 2009.
Still, one result of the corporate extraction of Mexicos natural resources and displacement of its people that has followed the treaty has been the organization and strengthening of initiatives by indigenous communities to construct autonomy from the bottom up. Seeing that their own governments cannot respond to popular demands without retribution from corporations, the people of Mexico are asking about alternatives: What is it that we do want? The Zapatista revolution reminds us that not only another world, but many other worlds, are possible
Full Article: http://www.alternet.org/world/how-nafta-drove-mexicans-poverty-and-sparked-zapatista-revolt?akid=11347.44541.RWB6aQ&rd=1&src=newsletter941851&t=19
NAFTA's Chapter 11 Makes Canada Most-Sued Country Under Free Trade Tribunals
Canada is the most-sued country under the North American Free Trade Agreement and a majority of the disputes involve investors challenging the countrys environmental laws, according to a new study.
The study from the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) found that more than 70 per cent of claims since 2005 have been brought against Canada, and the number of challenges under a controversial settlement clause is rising sharply.
snip~
Thanks to NAFTA chapter 11, Canada has now been sued more times through investor-state dispute settlement than any other developed country in the world, said Scott Sinclair, who authored the study.
snip~
There are currently eight cases against the Canadian government asking for a total of $6 billion in damages. All of them were brought by U.S. companies.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/01/14/canada-sued-investor-state-dispute-ccpa_n_6471460.html
The study notes that although NAFTA proponents claimed that ISDS was needed to address concerns about corruption in the Mexican court system, most investor-state challenges involve public policy and regulatory matters. Sixty three per cent of claims against Canada involve challenges to environmental protection or resource management measures.
Currently, Canada faces nine active ISDS claims challenging a wide range of government measures that allegedly interfere with the expected profitability of foreign investments. Foreign investors are seeking over $6 billion in damages from the Canadian government.
These include challenges to a ban on fracking by the Quebec provincial government (Lone Pine); a decision by a Canadian federal court to invalidate a pharmaceutical patent on the basis that it was not sufficiently innovative or useful (Eli Lilly); provisions to promote the rapid adoption of renewable energies (Mesa); a moratorium on offshore wind projects in Lake Ontario (Windstream); and the decision to block a controversial mega-quarry in Nova Scotia (Clayton/Bilcon).
Canada has already lost or settled six claims, paid out damages totaling over $170 million and incurred tens of millions more in legal costs. Mexico has lost five cases and paid damages of US$204 million. The U.S. has never lost a NAFTA investor-state case.
More: https://www.policyalternatives.ca/newsroom/news-releases/nafta-investor-state-claims-against-canada-are-out-control-study
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023210314
http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article/235930947-the-deplorable-legacy-of-brian-mulroney
NAFTA undermines democracy. Foreign corporations use Chapter 11 to challenge environmental laws, municipal land-use controls, water protection measures, the activities of Canada Post, and even the decisions of judges and juries. While no Canadian citizen or corporation could bring forward these challenges, NAFTA grants corporations of member countries the right to challenge any federal rule or law that they perceive as a barrier to their ability to make a profit. The result is millions of tax dollars being spent to either fight or settle with these corporations.
NAFTA threatens health care and other public services. The exemption for health care under NAFTA, which has largely kept U.S. for-profit health corporations out of Canada, applies only to a fully publicly funded system. Once privatized, the system must give national treatment rights to American private hospital chains. The NAFTA exemption only applies to medicare as it stood in 1989, and doesnt provide protection for a possible expansion of medicare into new areas like homecare and pharmacare.
NAFTA strips Canada of control over our energy resources. Canada now produces about 40 per cent more oil than it consumes, but has to rely heavily on imported oil from offshore. Thanks to NAFTA, Canada now exports 70 percent of the oil and 61 per cent of the natural gas we produce each year to the United States. NAFTA prevents us from selling our energy resources to Canadians at rates lower than we sell them in the U.S. And because of NAFTAs proportional sharing clause, we cant ever cut back on the amount of energy we produce and sell to the United States, even in times when our country runs short.
NAFTA could put our water up for sale. Canadian water is defined as a service and an investment under NAFTA. The agreements so-called water exemption is inadequate. After British Columbia banned bulk exports of lake and river water, the California-based Sun Belt Corporation launched a Chapter 11 challenge, seeking $10 billion in damages. The case is still outstanding, and has profound implications for the future of Canadas water.
http://pushedleft.blogspot.ca/2009/11/nafta-and-teh-selling-of-canada-we-got.html
Ten Reasons Why the TPP Must Be Defeated
byBernie Sanders
Published on
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
by Common Dreams
The TPP is a treaty that has been written behind closed doors by the corporate world. Incredibly, while Wall Street, the pharmaceutical industry and major media companies have full knowledge as to what is in this treaty, the American people and members of Congress do not. They have been locked out of the process. Further, all Americans, regardless of political ideology, should be opposed to the fast track process which would deny Congress the right to amend the treaty and represent their constituents interests.
The TPP follows in the footsteps of other unfettered "free trade" agreements like NAFTA, CAFTA and the Permanent Normalized Trade Agreement with China (PNTR). These treaties have forced American workers to compete against desperate and low-wage labor around the world. The result has been massive job losses in the United States and the shutting down of tens of thousands of factories. These corporately backed trade agreements have significantly contributed to the race to the bottom, the collapse of the American middle class and increased wealth and income inequality. The TPP is more of the same, but even worse.
During my 23 years in Congress, I helped lead the fight against NAFTA and PNTR with China. During the coming session of Congress, I will be working with organized labor, environmentalists, religious organizations, Democrats, and Republicans against the secretive TPP trade deal.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/12/31/ten-reasons-why-tpp-must-be-defeated
TPP Trade Deal Will Be Devastating for Access to Affordable Medicines
By Doctors Without borders
Source: Doctors Without Borders
February 2, 2015
But right now the U.S. government is advocating for trade terms with eleven other Pacific Rim nations that could restrict access to generic medicines, making life-saving treatments unaffordable to millions.
Damaging intellectual property rules in the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) would give pharmaceutical companies longer monopolies over brand name drugs. Companies would be able to charge high prices for longer periods of time. And it would be much harder for generic companies to produce cheaper drugs that are vital to peoples health.
https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/tpp-trade-deal-will-be-devastating-for-access-to-affordable-medicines/
Trans-Pacific Partnership and Monsanto
By Barbara Chicherio
Source: Nation of Change
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
In April 2013, Peru placed a 10-year moratorium on GMO foods and plants. This prohibits the import, production and use of GMOs in foods and GMO plants and is aimed at safeguarding Peru's agricultural diversity. The hope is to prevent cross-pollination with non-GMO crops and to ban GMO crops like Bt corn. What will become of Peru's moratorium if the TPP is passed?
There is a growing resistance to Monsanto's agricultural plans in Vietnam. Monsanto (the US corporation controlling an estimated 90% of the world seed genetics) has a dark history with Vietnam. Many believe that Monsanto has no right to do business in a country where Monsanto's product Agent Orange is estimated to have killed 400,000 Vietnamese, deformed another 500,000 and stricken another 2 million with various diseases.
Legacies of other trade agreements that serve as a warning about the TPP have a history of displacing small farmers and destroying local food economies. Ten years following the passage of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) 1.5 million Mexican farmers became bankrupt because they could not compete with the highly subsidized US corn entering the Mexican market.
Full Article: http://www.zcommunications.org/trans-pacific-partnership-and-monsanto-by-barbara-chicherio
As usual, in every scheme that worsens the position of the poor, it is the poor who are invoked as beneficiaries.
― Vandana Shiva
Monsanto, the TPP, and Global Food Dominance
by Ellen Hodgson Brown / November 27th, 2013
Control oil and you control nations, said US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the 1970s. Control food and you control the people.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2013/11/monsanto-the-tpp-and-global-food-dominance/
Making the World Safe for Big Business
By Sean Starrs
Source: Jacobin Magazine
May 15, 2015
Protection of IP rights ensures that advanced knowledge sectors, like the pharmaceuticals industry, maintain their healthy profit margins (and the poor continue to be denied life-saving drugs). US agribusiness will profit from the opening of Japans agricultural sector, and Nike will benefit from the further liberalization of Vietnam (where most of its shoes are manufactured).
To understand whose interests are being served, one simply has to note that US trade representatives are accompanied by over six hundred corporate advisers to the negotiations, which are shrouded in secrecy. Labor advisers? Zero.
The TPP will also make it easier for transnational corporations to sue governments for labor, environmental, health, safety, and other regulations, in order to gain taxpayer compensation for loss of future returns due to expropriation. Investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms already in place in many existing international investment treaties will be consolidated and strengthened in the TPP to ensure a single, more predictable, standard for the record-breaking number of new cases.
Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/making-the-world-safe-for-big-business/
A Corporate Coup in Disguise (TPP)
By Jim Hightower
Source: Alternet
Wednesday, October 02, 2013
This is a super-sized NAFTA, the 1994 trade scam rammed through Congress by the entire corporate establishment. NAFTA promised the "glories of globalization": prosperity across our land. Unfortunately, corporations got the gold. We got the shaft -- thousands of factories closed, millions of middle-class jobs went south, and the economies of hundreds of towns and cities were shattered.
Twenty years later, the gang that gave us NAFTA is back with the TPP, a "trade deal" that mostly does not deal with trade. Of the 29 chapters in this document, only five cover traditional trade matters! The other chapters amount to a devilish "partnership" for corporate protectionism:
Full Article: http://www.zcommunications.org/a-corporate-coup-in-disguise-by-jim-hightower.html
Canada, and the U.S. - all those other countries involved and set to lose with privatization and loss of control of safeguards for the environment, public safety nets, health services and pharmaceuticals, the ability to save and use seed, and on and on with every one of these agreements. I have a lot of learning to do about it all too, but I know they're all NAFTA on steroids, and all you have to do is look at the devastation in Mexico and the loss of jobs here in NA to understand what more is at stake. Corporations will control all of it, these agreements are spreading that ability like a cancer.
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership
Across Canada and around the world, people are speaking out about the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement (TPP). They are rallying against the secrecy of the 12-country negotiations and the corporate agenda behind the deal.
On February 12, legislators in seven of the 12 TPP countries issued the following joint statement about the negotiations:
We, the undersigned legislators from countries involved in the negotiation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, call on the Parties to the negotiation to publish the draft text of the Agreement before any final agreement is signed with sufficient time to enable effective legislative scrutiny and public debate
In Canada, the statement was endorsed by the federal NDP and the Green Party of Canada. It is the simplest of demands for democracy on a trade deal that threatens to undermine the very notion of the public good, by giving corporations more power to undermine public policy.
http://www.tppmpsfortransparency.org/
Trans-Pacific Partnership: Canada Should Be Evicted From Trade Talks, Congress Members Say
The Huffington Post Canada | By Daniel Tencer
In a letter sent to the president last week, 140 members of Congress urged the president to cut Canada, as well as Japan, out of talks on the Trans-Pacific Partnership if the countries refuse to open up their agricultural industries to competition under the deal.
The letter said the lawmakers were troubled by Canadas lack of ambition, which is threatening a robust outcome for U.S. farmers.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/08/06/tpp-canada-supply-management_n_5654130.html
TTIP
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Investment_Partnership
Germany rejects CETA and TTIP; Council of Canadians applauds Germany's decision
July 26, 2014
The Council of Canadians applauds Germany's rejection of the Canada-EU and EU-US trade deals reported in Reuters today. The German government decided to reject these trade deals because of provisions that allow companies to sue governments for infringing on their profits.
"This is a victory for democracy. We are pleased that the German government has listened to critics of the investor-state dispute settlement provisions of the deal that give foreign corporations the right to dictate domestic policy," said Maude Barlow, national chairperson of the Council of Canadians.
"We've worked to educate European politicians on just how harmful allowing companies to sue you can be," said Scott Harris, trade campaigner with the Council of Canadians. "We've told them about all the lawsuits Canada has faced under NAFTA for legitimate regulations that protect our health and environment."
The Council of Canadians was a major player in this battle and the first to challenge it. The Council is available for further comment on this breaking story.
http://www.canadians.org/media/germany-rejects-ceta-and-ttip-council-canadians-applauds-germanys-decision
EU-Canada trade deal leak ridicules TTIP consultation, campaigners say
Published: 14/08/2014 - 18:03 | Updated: 18/08/2014 - 10:556
?itok=pxYRw34t
The leaked text of an EU-Canada free trade deal confirms fears that multinationals may sue EU states in special tribunals for enacting laws that upset their profit forecasts, and now campaigners question the public consultation on a free trade deal with the US.
The leaked EU-Canada Trade Agreement (CETA), signed last November and due to be unveiled on 25 September, contains a controversial chapter on Investor-State Disputes Settlement (ISDS) that is substantially unchanged from previous drafts.
These were used by the EU in March to get stakeholder responses to negotiations for a similar TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the US. At the time, the Commission said that it would seriously consider all 150,000 responses.
But the use of the drafts unamended wording in the final CETA treaty - before the results of the public consultation have even been analysed - show that it was little more than a PR stunt, according to Kenneth Haar, a spokesman for Corporate Europe Observatory.
CETA
Why is CETA bad for Canadians?
1. CETA threatens our public services!
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http://stopceta.ca/bad-deal-for-canada
Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_Economic_and_Trade_Agreement
Canada-EU (CETA)
http://www.canadians.org/ceta
Ratification of CETA not likely until late 2015, early 2016
Apr 24, 2014. April 24, 2014 - 8:28am
The Toronto Star reports, "Six months after Prime Minister Stephen Harper travelled to Brussels to announce Canadas largest-ever free-trade pact with Europe, Canada and the European Union are still negotiating key aspects of the deal, with implementation possibly as much as two years away. ...Canadian officials estimated (in October 2013) that finalizing the deal, fixing all the legal language, translating the agreement and obtaining approval in Europe and Canada would take until the spring of 2015. But negotiators have yet to resolve a handful of thorny trade issues and the EU now doesnt expect the pact to be put in place until late 2015 or early 2016."
"On the table are proposed rules related to import quotas for beef and pork, provision of services by business, investment rules and guidelines for determining, for instance, whether Canadian-exported cars with a mix of Canadian and United States parts are eligible for tariff reductions under CETA. ...Another factor that is raising questions about how the final approval of CETA will go is the recently initiated talks between the EU and the United States on a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).These negotiations appear to have sparked increased concern in Europe over a controversial feature of current trade negotiations investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanisms. These measures allow corporations to go before an independent tribunal and sue governments that allegedly discriminate against foreign companies. CETA contains an ISDS clause and any EU-United States agreement is expected to have one as well. But, reflecting complaints by NGOs that corporations are abusing these measures, the European Commission called a temporary halt in ISDS discussions with Washington to hold a public consultation on the measures."
Both the European Parliament and "all 28 member states of the EU must also ratify the pact".
If ratified, CETA could unfairly restrict how local governments spend money and ban 'buy local' policies, add hundreds of millions of dollars to the price of drugs, create pressure to increase privatization of local water systems, transit and energy, and much more. The secret negotiating process, as well as the overall corporate agenda behind these next generation deals, are an affront to democracy on both sides of the Atlantic.
https://monctonfreepress.ca/post/35999
http://www.dw.de/with-ttip-eu-and-us-promise-a-transatlantic-trade-miracle/a-17935749
Saskia Sassen: I think they are crucial elements, starting with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) rounds, for creating a global operational space that is an advantage for the multinationals. The truth of the matter is that when you look at the data the gains go to the firms operating globally. The notion of losing or gaining jobs like countries in Europe or the United States might try to look at, is just not an issue for them. So what they want is the capacity to access the particular labor supply or regulatory environment that works to their advantage. For the United States the data is quite clear: The United States has basically lost jobs. That affects workers, but it has nothing to do with big corporations. For them this is not important for their operation.
And a final issue I have with all these new generation treaties is that corporations gain rights. If you stand back and ask yourself who gains rights, it is not the citizens. Citizens in many of our countries have lost rights. Little rights that are sort of encased in technical aspects and most citizens don't even realize it until it happens to them. And with TTIP and TTP they gain even more rights and so a lot of critical analysts are stunned by these two treaties.
Spread the Word: TPP is Toxic Political Poison that Politicians should Avoid
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / October 24th, 2015
At its root, the TPP is about modern colonialism. It is the way that Western governments and their transnational corporations, including Wall Street banks, can dominate the economies of developing nations. And its not too late to stop it.
And, similar to the TPP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is having troubles in Europe. Europeans see TTIP either not advancing or going in the wrong direction because of the heavy handedness of the U.S. The French negotiator said: France is considering all options including an outright termination of negotiations. More than 3 million people across Europe signed a petition calling on the European Commission to scrap the agreement and hundreds of thousands marched in Berlin on October 10 opposing the TTIP. People realize that rather than opening up new markets, since the U.S. and EU countries already trade a great deal, it will privatize public services for corporate profits.
The TPP gives incredible power to foreign banks to move money in and out of countries without restrictions. It minimizes regulation of big finance to allow risk-tasking that endangers the world economy. Countries that need money will be enslaved by loans from big finance like Citigroup, and once they are in debt, they will be unable to stand up to the demands of banksters who threaten them as we witnessed recently in Greece.
The reality is that without trade justice there cannot be climate justice, food justice; there cannot be health justice or wage justice. Injustice in trade undermines all the issues the social movement is working to correct.
Full article: http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/10/spread-the-word-tpp-is-toxic-political-poison-that-politicians-should-avoid/#more-60210
Secretive Deal Isnt about Trade, but Corporate Control
Julian Assange on the TPP
by Democracy Now! / May 27th, 2015
As negotiations continue, WikiLeaks has published leaked chapters of the secret Trans-Pacific Partnership a global trade deal between the United States and 11 other countries. The TPP would cover 40 percent of the global economy, but details have been concealed from the public.
Published on May 27, 2015
http://democracynow.org
A recently disclosed "Investment Chapter" highlights the intent of U.S.-led negotiators to create a tribunal where corporations can sue governments if their laws interfere with a companys claimed future profits.
BBM
FAIR TRADE
We do read and experience the results of these things up here, you know. 'Canada' isn't just any leader - no matter who he/she is, and Trudeau's support of the TPP makes me sick. But we all know that the 1% demands the participation of gov't leaders who haven't got the stones or apparently, intelligence to go against it. Again, these new agreements are NAFTA on steroids. What's to like about the TPP, let alone 'beg' for it??
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)None of them understand as much as the critics here.
polly7
(20,582 posts)Hoyt
(54,770 posts)If not corrupt, are all the government experts just ignorant compared to our global economists posting here.
polly7
(20,582 posts)It's not having the same leverage to be able to refuse 'deals' that prop up an economy while the people in it are forced into possible brutal austerity including giving up all the things they once depended on, sacrificing environmental regulations, native farming practices, etc. etc. etc. Didn't you read any of what I posted there?
Some countries do what they have to do. Some choose it, because they are the ones with the most to gain.
Culture of Cruelty: the Age of Neoliberal Authoritarianism
By Henry A. Giroux
Source: Counterpunch
October 24, 2015
The mantras of deregulation, privatization, commodification, and the unimpeded flow of capital now drive politics and concentrate power in the hands of the 1 percent. Class warfare has merged with neo-conservative polices to engage in permanent warfare both abroad and at home. There are no safe spaces free from the rich hoarders of capital and the tentacles of the surveillance and punishing state. The basic imperatives of casino capitalism-extending from eliminating corporate taxes and shifting wealth from the public to the private sector to dismantling corporate regulations and insisting that markets should govern all of social life have become the new common sense. Any viable notion of the social, solidarity, and shared democratic values are now viewed as a pathology, replaced by a survival of the fittest ethic, the celebration of self-interest, and a notion of the good life entirely tied to a vapid consumerist ethic.[3]
Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/culture-of-cruelty-the-age-of-neoliberal-authoritarianism/
Demeter
(85,373 posts)And if Trudeau can take down NAFTA, he will be the leader of the Truly Free world!
gregcrawford
(2,382 posts)When the TPP goes into effect, the rabid jackals in corporate legal departments won't even have to bother filing suit in Canada's - or any other country's - courts. According to leaked documents, all lawsuits alleging a possible adverse impact on future profits will be adjudicated in corporate tribunals by corporate lawyers. There will be no avenues of appeal.
We cannot allow these evil monsters to get away with this. I, for one, do not want to hear my grandchildren ask, "Were you just too chickenshit to stand up to these bastards? Just look at the poisonous, polluted hellscape you left us!"
CanSocDem
(3,286 posts)Actual courts, those institutions of social justice that are a foundation of democracy, are being made obsolete by the collective force of big business.
"Big Business" knows that all you really want is a good job.
.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)Babel_17
(5,400 posts)King Arthur: I am your king.
Woman: Well, I didn't vote for you.
King Arthur: You don't vote for kings.
Woman: Well how'd you become king then?
<Angelic music plays... >
King Arthur: The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. THAT is why I am your king.
Dennis: [interrupting] Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071853/quotes
fasttense
(17,301 posts)I love it, Thanks for posting.
Joe Chi Minh
(15,229 posts)the benefit of the public. I mean large corporations exploiting a patent for a product of unique excellence and, as a result, effectively eliminating competition and monopolizing the market, should be permitted only brief patent rights. They don't scruple to impose their own prior rights over patent ideas of employees - even after they have left the corporation some time ago.
In fact, someone pointed out that the major IT corporations should be broken up, as they are co-opted to serve the government's intelligence services, and no right to (lawful) privacy need be respected.
NobodyHere
(2,810 posts)Why wouldn't they still be co-opted to serve the government's intelligence services. Do you think the NSA takes "no" for an answer?
Joe Chi Minh
(15,229 posts)this is something I am quoting from a news item, and am not sure in that regard. Presumably, the journo had some reason in mind.
Duppers
(28,125 posts)Enough is enough.
Babel_17
(5,400 posts)Hopefully it's cool to repost this.
http://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/
Clicking that link above will take you directly to the well written (and drawn) comic that goes to a great length to explain some of the pitfalls of this TPP deal. It also uses humor while doing so, and it also expounds in a readily understandable way on how trade in general can be subverted from being a good thing.
What is Economix?
Economix is a graphic novel by Michael Goodwin, illustrated by Dan E. Burr, that explains the economy. More than a cartoon version of a textbook, Economix gives the whole story of the economy, from the rise of capitalism to Occupy Wall Street. Economix is published by Abrams Comic Arts.
Praise for Economix
I just cannot stress enough how amazing this book is.
James Floyd Kelly, Wired.com
Its simply phenomenal.
David Bach, author of Debt Free for Life and The Automatic Millionaire
Goodwin has done the seemingly impossiblehe has made economics comprehensible and funny.
Joel Bakan, author of The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power
An amazing lesson in true-world economics! Delightfully presented, powerful, insightful, and important information. What a fun way to fathom a deep and often dark subject
John Perkins, author of Hoodwinked and the New York Times bestseller Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
Economix is a lively, cheerfully opinionated romp through the historical and intellectual foundations of our current economy and our current economic problems. Goodwin has a knack for distilling complex ideas and events in ways that invite the reader to follow the big picture without losing track of what actually happened. Any reader wondering how our economy got to where it is today will find this a refreshing overview.
Timothy W. Guinnane, Philip Golden Bartlett Professor of Economic History, Yale University
Here's the link to the home page for that. http://economixcomix.com/
The link in the thread title is to an excellent "comic" that I found to provide an amazing focus on the TPP treaty. http://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/
Please share this if you found it useful! Reposting here at DU, as appropriate, would be great.
I scored this link at the "news for nerds" website, slashdot. /. link to the TPP thread I got it from: http://politics.slashdot.org/story/15/10/09/2242252/eff-the-final-leaked-tpp-text-is-all-that-we-feared
eridani
(51,907 posts)randome
(34,845 posts)My guess is that these companies were successful (and I wonder how many were not, hm?) because Canada applied these restrictions unfairly, to benefit their own companies at the expense of others involved in the treaty.
But since the article does not address the 'why', it's just conjecture on my part.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]"The whole world is a circus if you know how to look at it."
Tony Randall, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)[/center][/font][hr]
eridani
(51,907 posts)And that has no bearing on whether corporations can sue elected governments just because their profits are threatened.
polly7
(20,582 posts)I hate every one of these stinking trade deals.
pampango
(24,692 posts)From Japan: TPP sets limit on corporate suits
The Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade pact limits the period for foreign companies to file damages lawsuits against host states over sudden regulatory changes to 3½ years, Jiji Press learned Wednesday.
The limit, included in a TPP provision on investor-state dispute settlement, is designed to prevent abuse of litigation by multinational businesses. ISDS gives the legal basis for foreign businesses to challenge sudden changes in host country regulations.
Japan and the United States had pushed for the introduction of ISDS in an effort to help their companies go overseas. They successfully persuaded Australia and other reluctant countries by proposing the limit.
The ISDS provision allows member governments to introduce regulations about medical care and the environment at their own discretion. The provision also states that member governments will not be forced to change regulations even if they lose lawsuits from foreign businesses.
http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0002510148
I don't know if this analysis is based on an actual reading of the TPP text or is based on rumor or leaks of previous drafts. If - a big IF - "member governments will not be forced to change regulations even if they lose lawsuits from foreign businesses" - that would be a big deal.
fasttense
(17,301 posts)This is just this person's opinion. It has no more bases in fact than Santa Clause. Didn't some politicians claim the TPP would bring more jobs and peace on earth? Yet the US has fewer jobs and more wars.
What facts we do have clearly show how devastating "free" trade agreements are to country's local economies and environments.
And the whole purpose of awarding damages is to change behavior. When it comes to bringing law suits against entire nations, that change translates into CHANGING LAWS.
wildbilln864
(13,382 posts)Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)eridani
(51,907 posts)--defending themselves against predatory corporate bullshit.