Trade Agreements and Investor "Rights" That Trump National Laws
I'm not against foreign investment. I'm not against giving some rights and protections for the investors. I am opposed to the extreme investor rights in past trade agreements, the abuses perpetrated by corporations granted those "rights" and the lavish investor "rights" proposed for the Trans-Pacific Trade Agreement. These supposed rights make a mockery of environmental, health and human rights protections.
Investor rights is a lopsided proposition in trade agreements. Lots of "rights" for investors. Few if any responsibilities.
Investors are favored over the state by allowing corporate investors to bypass national, provincial, state and municipal laws and regulation. The vehicle for this is what's known as Investor State Dispute Resolution. ISDR allows a corporate investor to challenge these laws by bringing their complaints to a 3 or 4 person panel of attorneys. ISDR is conducted by a branch of the World Bank.
The genesis of these inflated investor "rights" goes back to NAFTA's Chapter 11. Most, if not all, of U.S. trade agreements subsequent to that, include the same avenue of supposed redress.
In 2012, 62 new cases were initiated.
What do these cases look like?
In October 2012, an ICSID tribunal awarded a judgment of $1.8 billion for Occidental Petroleum against the government of Ecuador.[18] Additionally, Ecuador had to pay $589 million in backdated compound interest and half of the costs of the tribunal, making its total penalty around $2.4 billion.[18] The South American country annulled a contract with the oil firm on the grounds that it violated a clause that the company would not sell its rights to another firm without permission. The tribunal agreed the violation took place but judged that the annulment was not fair and equitable treatment to the company.[18]
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Tobacco major Philip Morris sued Uruguay for alleged breaches to the Uruguay-Swiss BIT for requiring cigarette packs to display graphic health warnings and sued Australia under the Australia-Hong Kong BITS for requiring plain packaging for its cigarettes. The company claims that the packaging requirements in both countries violate its investment.[18]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Centre_for_Settlement_of_Investment_Disputes
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130411/09574122678/investor-state-dispute-resolution-sleeping-monster-inside-free-trade-agreements-begins-to-stir.shtml
http://www.citizen.org/trade/article_redirect.cfm?ID=5479