General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Trans-Pacific Partnership clause everyone should oppose - By Elizabeth Warren
The Trans-Pacific Partnership clause everyone should oppose
By Elizabeth Warren
February 25, 2015
The United States is in the final stages of negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive free-trade agreement with Mexico, Canada, Japan, Singapore and seven other countries. Who will benefit from the TPP? American workers? Consumers? Small businesses? Taxpayers? Or the biggest multinational corporations in the world?
One strong hint is buried in the fine print of the closely guarded draft. The provision, an increasingly common feature of trade agreements, is called Investor-State Dispute Settlement, or ISDS. The name may sound mild, but dont be fooled. Agreeing to ISDS in this enormous new treaty would tilt the playing field in the United States further in favor of big multinational corporations. Worse, it would undermine U.S. sovereignty.
ISDS would allow foreign companies to challenge U.S. laws and potentially to pick up huge payouts from taxpayers without ever stepping foot in a U.S. court. Heres how it would work. Imagine that the United States bans a toxic chemical that is often added to gasoline because of its health and environmental consequences. If a foreign company that makes the toxic chemical opposes the law, it would normally have to challenge it in a U.S. court. But with ISDS, the company could skip the U.S. courts and go before an international panel of arbitrators. If the company won, the ruling couldnt be challenged in U.S. courts, and the arbitration panel could require American taxpayers to cough up millions and even billions of dollars in damages.
If that seems shocking, buckle your seat belt. ISDS could lead to gigantic fines, but it wouldnt employ independent judges. Instead, highly paid corporate lawyers would go back and forth between representing corporations one day and sitting in judgment the next. Maybe that makes sense in an arbitration between two corporations, but not in cases between corporations and governments. If youre a lawyer looking to maintain or attract high-paying corporate clients, how likely are you to rule against those corporations when its your turn in the judges seat?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kill-the-dispute-settlement-language-in-the-trans-pacific-partnership/2015/02/25/ec7705a2-bd1e-11e4-b274-e5209a3bc9a9_story.html
Arizona Roadrunner
(168 posts)As a person who has served on a local governments Board of Directors, I am VERY concerned about the TPP ISDS court process with results being the surrendering of governmental sovereignty to corporate interests, foreign and domestic.
Basically due to secretive deliberations, this judicial process is designed to favor corporate over governmental concerns and interests. This agreement should not allow corporations to use this judicial process, but should demand they use our existing judicial process as it relates to governmental entities. How many state and local governments can afford to be involved in such a process? Just by the threat of suits through ISDS, a climate where governmental units cave in will be created. Look at what has happened under NAFTA and the WTO as it relates to our right to know where our food comes from. Look at how a Canadian corporation is using NAFTA to sue the U.S. on the Keystone project.
This will mean that political topics such as minimum wage increases and housing and zoning laws may be pre-empted by just the threat of a suit through the ISDS process. Look at what happened with Egypt when a corporation tried to use a process analogous to the ISDS to prevent Egypt from raising their minimum wage laws. (Veolia v. Egypt)
Therefore, I recommend, in the national interest, this agreement not be approved. When people find out how this can be used to prevent them from finding out things such as where products are made, etc., there will be charges of treason and the political process will never recover the trust of the American citizens.
By not voting against the TPP outright, the Democrats have given Trump a great opportunity to tie the Democrats to the "establishment" and "corporate America". He can also use this position to raise questions about the Democrats "really caring about you and your job". This is a loser position for the Democrats for the "down ticket" candidates too. By the way, the US Chamber of Commerce is not worried about Clinton being "currently" against TPP. They figure after she gets into office, she will find a way for her to be "currently" in favor of it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/chamber-of-commerce-lobby_b_9104096.html
Cryptoad
(8,254 posts)Hillary is lying when she says she is against ttp?
Response to Cryptoad (Reply #36)
Post removed
JEB
(4,748 posts)LiberalLovinLug
(14,173 posts)Motown_Johnny
(22,308 posts)Her positions on trade seem to be fluid, seeking the path of least resistance at any given time.
She may very well be against it right now but that doesn't mean she will be against it after the election is over.
That doesn't make it a lie. It is simply her position evolving to fit the circumstances.
99th_Monkey
(19,326 posts)Would be good to clarify our opposition to this in our Platform.
Concerns about "embarrassing Obama" aside. From one standpoint,
he should be embarrassed.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)This is the clause that gets everyone excited, for good reason.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)ratification. She was quite wrong about that, as were many who believed such junk.
Also at that time, she was just recognizing the ISDS provisions, not realizing it had been in hundreds of trade agreements since 1959, including ones in which the USA was not involved. Arbitration is held under UN sanction rules, it's not something new. Fortunately, a year and a half later, she's learned a few things that many who believed that junk have not.
Gabi Hayes
(28,795 posts)''OTTAWA TransCanada said on Wednesday that it would seek $15 billion in damages over the Obama administrations decision to cancel the companys Keystone XL pipeline project.
The company is taking the unusual step of suing through the North American Free Trade Agreement, calling the decision arbitrary and unjustified. The Canadian business also filed a lawsuit in Houston asking that the decision be overturned.
TransCanada has been unjustly deprived of the value of its multibillion-dollar investment by the U.S. administrations action, the company said in a statement. Rather, the denial was a symbolic gesture based on speculation about the (false) perceptions of the international community regarding the administrations leadership on climate change.
The $8 billion Keystone XL pipeline would have connected Canadas oil sands to American refineries on the Gulf Coast, offering the promise of improving prices. Canadian energy companies viewed the pipeline as the key to sustaining growth, since the United States buys the vast majority of petroleum produced by the oil sands.
''
NAFTA, WTO, TPP....cui bono?
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)Last edited Mon Jul 4, 2016, 08:08 PM - Edit history (1)
standing under NAFTA. If they somehow do, it will be years before arbitration is finished and they'll likely won't get any damages. There is no chance the suit will change the rulings against the pipeline.
Anyone can file a suit over pipeline. You could too.
bhikkhu
(10,716 posts)as mentioned below, the Methanex vs US is a good example. A Canadian manufacturer took us to arbitration because California banned MTBE, one of their products. The arbiters decided that California had a right to regulate the product in the interest of public safety, and supported by the science; they ruled against Methanex, also awarding the US $4 million in legal costs. That was an ISDS suit.
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,002 posts)Then how come we had to stop labelling (beef and pork) meat with country of origin? Wasn't that due to a complaint under either NAFTA or WTO? Or did we just "not lose" because we caved ("settled" before a ruling?
bhikkhu
(10,716 posts)"Governments put ISDS in place for at least three reasons:
To resolve investment conflicts without creating state-to-state conflict
To protect citizens abroad
To signal to potential investors that the rule of law will be respected
Because of the safeguards in U.S. agreements and because of the high standards of our legal system, foreign investors rarely pursue arbitration against the United States and have never been successful when they have done so."
I've no special knowledge about how many different types of courts there are and am not sure how the WTO decision was made. It was a dispute between states in any case.
sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)in the past and it's a bad idea in the present, then it's a bad idea. Having been a bad idea in the past doesn't necessarily make it a good idea now.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)but that doesn't make it a good idea now. I think all the trade deals since and including NAFTA have resulted in lost jobs, lower wages and an increased balance of payments deficit kept afloat by foreign investment and consumer debt.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)much of the world. Today, too many here are trying to hoard our wealth, rather than sharing it with countries like Vietnam where the only thing they've ever gotten from us is fire bombs.
sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)by allowing 13 year old Vietnamese girls to make Nikes for $0.20 an hour, working 60 hour weeks in sweatshops.
dbackjon
(6,578 posts)Because it would be too costly to make domestically?
sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)The one that would sell for $150 even if it cost $100 to make, which, by the way, would still be a hell of a profit.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)prior agreements, though not back to the mid century, so it seems strange that she would not. I greatly admire what Warren is trying to do and would vote for her for president, but I don't forget she was a Republican until the mid 1990s, when that party finally became too wacko conservative for her.
Btw, she is excellent proof that moderate economic conservatives can be very progressive.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)FairWinds
(1,717 posts)How about a source for your ridiculous statement?
That is in 2015 Warren "was still claiming the agreement would not be released until 4 years AFTER
ratification."
Did you think no one would notice?
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)are still people here today who say the documents have not been released, even after someone give them a direct link.
FairWinds
(1,717 posts)if your accusation is so accurate, you
should be able to provide a source.
Not the first time you've tried to pull stuff like this . .
Gabi Hayes
(28,795 posts)Q: Is it true that Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) would allow corporations to override laws, including environmental and public health regulations?
Answer
No. ISDS cannot change law in the United States or any other country. No government measure (federal, state, or local) can be blocked or reversed under the ISDS provisions or any other part of TPP. The United States would never negotiate away its right to regulate in the public interest, and we dont ask other countries to do so either. This is true with regard to public health and safety, the financial sector, the environment, and any other area where governments seek to regulate.
Put simply, ISDS is a mechanism to promote good governance and the rule of law. ISDS protects basic rights such as protection against discrimination and expropriation without compensation akin to those enshrined in U.S. law and the Constitution. We already provide these protections at home to foreign and domestic investors under U.S. law. Thats why although we are party to 51 agreements with ISDS the U.S. has never lost an ISDS case. Our trade agreements ensure the same kinds of protections to U.S. businesses and investors operating abroad, where they face a heightened risk of discrimination and bias.
TPP includes a number of enhancements that strengthen the transparency and integrity of the dispute settlement process under ISDS. These include making hearings open to the public, allowing the public and public interest groups to file amicus curiae submissions, ensuring that all ISDS awards are subject to review by domestic courts or international review panels, ensuring that governments have a way to dismiss claims that are without merit on an expedited basis, and more.
In addition, after consultations with Members of Congress, the United States pushed for and secured additional safeguards that will establish a code of conduct for ISDS arbitrators and facilitate the dismissal of frivolous claims, among other first-of-their-kind provisions.
ISDS ensures that a wide range of American businesses including small businesses are protected against unfair discrimination when investing abroad. This will benefit the millions of American workers employed by these companies, as outside analysis shows that about half of ISDS cases are initiated by small- and medium-sized businesses, or individual investors.
https://medium.com/the-trans-pacific-partnership/frequently-asked-questions-on-the-trans-pacific-partnership-eddc8d87ac73#.mm2c0p9dz
so who to believe....putting my shekels on Warren at this point.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)arbitration rules in hundreds of trade agreements around the world. She's learned a lot in the 1.5 years since OP.
Gabi Hayes
(28,795 posts)but what about the ISDS? TPP FAQ page puts the lie to all the other assertions that, indeed, UNAPPEALABLE arbitration by business-stacked boards will override local environmental, safety, etc., regs?
are those who contend the latter just making it up?
I've become a person who has a hard time knowing what to believe anymore, using, most of the time, the 'whose bread is buttered where' procedure to decide which party is describing whatever particular situation is being analyzed
bhikkhu
(10,716 posts)and failing to come up with any examples that validate those fears. The US has 50 agreements in place already stipulating ISDS arbitration, and has faced 17 challenges, winning each one.
The closest one to Warren concerns might be Methanex vs US ( http://www.state.gov/s/l/c5818.htm ), where California banned MTBE and the Canadian manufacturer brought the case to an ISDS court (under UNCITRAL rules) claiming damages. The arbiters dismissed the case, finding that the imposition of regulations was well within the right of the government and its duty to public health. They required Methanex to pay the government for legal costs.
sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)ISDS would indeed not override national law. That was never the intent. What it is designed to do is make a country potentially pay a hefty price for enforcing its laws and thus act as an disincentive for it doing that by giving private parties carte blanch to sue governments and by sending those suits to arbitration by people who cannot be shown to be impartial. You may also rest assured that cooperative members of congress and state legislatures, willing to abrogate their laws, will benefit handsomely from corporate largess if the TPP passes.
bhikkhu
(10,716 posts)Fact Sheet:
https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/fact-sheets/2015/march/investor-state-dispute-settlement-isds
I appreciate Warren's perspective, but looking at the ISDS system itself, it seems to be an improvement on other means, and certainly an improvement on having nothing. If there were examples of abuse that would be one thing, but there there doesn't seem to be, and precedent seems to be more toward ISDS system respecting the rights of governments to regulate.
Gabi Hayes
(28,795 posts)correct, cause I don't see any way this isn't going to be put into effect
the process itself, though, makes me ill, and seems to be the height of anti-democratic, zaibatsu-like steamrolling of so-called elected governments
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,002 posts)1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)Don Draper
(187 posts)after she "fixes" it. This will be disastrous for the Democratic Party in the long run as the party (and it's head) will be blamed as American jobs are lost and the economy tanks.
If the Democratic Party was smart, they would have staunchly opposed the TPP.
I gotta say, it really hurts when your own team pushes for such regressive legislation.
floriduck
(2,262 posts)imagine why in hell this was never addressed by the administration when corporations wrote TPP.
FreeJoe
(1,039 posts)How is this different from other trade agreements arbitration clauses?
How would you set up the agreement so that countries couldn't create laws specifically designed to undercut the trade agreement that they signed?
Rex
(65,616 posts)nt
FreeJoe
(1,039 posts)Isn't the ISDS the enforcement process?
What in it would stop countries from violating their own laws?
Sgent
(5,857 posts)using the ISDS procedure, and if its proven that they have violated the treaty, be subject to fines or economic sanctions.
Rex
(65,616 posts)Or because the TVEE tells me what to think? That is kinda original. Well no matter what, time for Warren to get under the bus. Her words are inconvenient.
George II
(67,782 posts)SusanLarson
(284 posts)I call BS....
OTTAWA TransCanada said on Wednesday that it would seek $15 billion in damages over the Obama administrations decision to cancel the companys Keystone XL pipeline project.
The company is taking the unusual step of suing through the North American Free Trade Agreement, calling the decision arbitrary and unjustified. The Canadian business also filed a lawsuit in Houston asking that the decision be overturned.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/07/business/international/transcanada-to-sue-us-for-blocking-keystone-xl-pipeline.html
This is a preview of the ISDS
But the measure, which grew out of earlier trade provisions to compensate corporations after a foreign government expropriated their assets, does allow them to seek a range of damages, including unrealized profits.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)joshcryer
(62,270 posts)joshcryer
(62,270 posts)Chan790
(20,176 posts)Regardless of that I'm going to remain opposed to TPP until ISDS goes away. Preferably until FTAs in general go away and the Democratic party reverses course on policy we've been on the wrong side of since FDR was President.
Kill all the Free-Trade Agreements!!
joshcryer
(62,270 posts)If we lost then I'd be fine with it, because we probably messed up bad.
Warren's argument is fine from a protecting the little guy point of view, the non-American little guy.
brentspeak
(18,290 posts)And the TPP's ISDS clauses grant private investors far more power than any previous ISDS power.
Doesn't matter anyway: the TPP's ISDS clauses were really put there to deter the US government from actually administrating existing federal regulations which might affect investors' profits -- as well as dissuading future Congressional regulatory legislation from ever being proposed. It's all about the threat of lawsuits, and it's all a scam on the American people.
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,002 posts)It may not have been exactly the ISDS, but the NAFTA and WTO mechanism are similar.
Egnever
(21,506 posts)under TPP what she describes should not be possible if this portion of the agreement has any standing whatsoever. She probably had not actually read the document when she made this comment.
https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/TPP-Final-Text-Environment.pdf
2. The Parties recognise the sovereign right of each Party to establish its own
levels of domestic environmental protection and its own environmental priorities,
and to establish, adopt or modify its environmental laws and policies accordingly.
modestybl
(458 posts)... she's been at this sort of thing for a long time.
If the laws and regulations of a country are not to be challenged, what is the function of the
Investor-State Dispute Settlement? Some supra-national "court" infested with corporate lawyers and trade lobbyists who get to decide what constitutes a technical barrier to trade (or rather, a hindrance to a corporation's possible maximum profits?)
Egnever
(21,506 posts)modestybl
(458 posts)... seems pretty straight forward. The ISDS is a supra-national court lousy with corporate lawyers and trade lobbyists. Is that what we want to subject our laws and regulations to?
Egnever
(21,506 posts)So all the scaremongering is just that.
Egnever
(21,506 posts)1. Unless the disputing parties agree otherwise, the tribunal shall comprise
three arbitrators, one arbitrator appointed by each of the disputing parties and the
third, who shall be the presiding arbitrator, appointed by agreement of the
disputing parties.
Each party to the suit appoints its own person to the panel with a third person agreed upon by both parties. Hardly a situation stacked with corporate lawyers bent on destroying the sovereignty of the US.
Clearly she had not read the agreement when she wrote that article. Cause if she did she is outright lying about it.
Cryptoad
(8,254 posts)geeez.....somebody stirring the Shit Pot Again!
DirkGently
(12,151 posts)A treaty in which governments cede power and authority to business interests.
No accident the terms are so secret.
Sgent
(5,857 posts)DirkGently
(12,151 posts)Egnever
(21,506 posts)As is evident from the link once the details were worked out it was published for all to see months before any vote to ratify it.
DirkGently
(12,151 posts)The terms were secret because the terms were terrible, period.
Nice try though.
Egnever
(21,506 posts)Just can't amend the agreement. What difference does that make? Still has an up or down vote.
All adding an amendment would do is force the agreement to be renegotiated again.
What's wrong with a pass or fail vote? Eventually it will come to that anyway. Fast track just saves time.
Quantess
(27,630 posts)IgelJames4
(50 posts)The TPP is just bad for everyone involved, and will only hurt our workers.
FairWinds
(1,717 posts)what happened to the Dems in the 1994 congressional elections
that immediately followed . .
The Dems lost the House for the first time in 40 years !!
And that is how we got Hastert, Gingrich, gerrymandering and more.
If the Dems back the TPP, look for an ugly re-play and more big
congressional losses by the Dems.
And the Hillary supporters above seem not to care a bit.
FairWinds
(1,717 posts)"Free Trade"
It is actually anti-free trade . .
From my main man - Dean Baker
http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/there-they-go-again-it-s-not-free-trade