Did you know that Philip Morris is suing Australia over plain cigarette packaging?

[cali]

The war between the tobacco industry and anti-smoking forces is heating up as cigarette makers intensify efforts to use treaties to block labeling constraints.

Philip Morris International Inc. (PM) has pressed the U.S. for language that would make it tougher for countries in a proposed Pacific Rim trade pact to require plain packaging or other limits on company logos. Australia’s packaging law is being challenged at the World Trade Organization, and U.S. senators from tobacco-growing states, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, recently warned the European Union that smoking controls it’s considering could endanger a U.S. trade deal.

Cigarette makers defend the efforts as necessary to safeguard the intellectual property protections embedded in treaties. To anti-smoking forces, the tobacco lobby is working a strategy of intimidation.

“They are in this to convince governments it’s not worth the cost” to enact laws to reduce tobacco’s appeal, said Chris Bostic, deputy director for policy at Action on Smoking and Health, a Washington-based nonprofit. “It’s about chilling countries from moving forward.”

The U.K. recently postponed instituting strict cigarette-pack mandates so it could assess Australia’s law.

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-22/philip-morris-leads-plain-packs-battle-in-global-trade-arena.html

Did you know that there are dozens of cases like that this under the ISDS (Investor State Dispute Settlement) in FTAs? (Free Trade Agreements)

From a November 2013 Guardian article:

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its financial crisis, and in response to public anger over rocketing charges, Argentina imposed a freeze on people's energy and water bills (does this sound familiar?). It was sued by the international utility companies whose vast bills had prompted the government to act. For this and other such crimes, it has been forced to pay out over a billion dollars in compensation. In El Salvador, local communities managed at great cost (three campaigners were murdered) to persuade the government to refuse permission for a vast gold mine which threatened to contaminate their water supplies. A victory for democracy? Not for long, perhaps. The Canadian company which sought to dig the mine is now suing El Salvador for $315m – for the loss of its anticipated future profits

In Canada, the courts revoked two patents owned by the American drugs firm Eli Lilly, on the grounds that the company had not produced enough evidence that they had the beneficial effects it claimed. Eli Lilly is now suing the Canadian government for $500m, and demanding that Canada's patent laws are changed.

These companies (along with hundreds of others) are using the investor-state dispute rules embedded in trade treaties signed by the countries they are suing. The rules are enforced by panels which have none of the safeguards we expect in our own courts. The hearings are held in secret. The judges are corporate lawyers, many of whom work for companies of the kind whose cases they hear. Citizens and communities affected by their decisions have no legal standing. There is no right of appeal on the merits of the case. Yet they can overthrow the sovereignty of parliaments and the rulings of supreme courts.

You don't believe it? Here's what one of the judges on these tribunals says about his work. "When I wake up at night and think about arbitration, it never ceases to amaze me that sovereign states have agreed to investment arbitration at all ... Three private individuals are entrusted with the power to review, without any restriction or appeal procedure, all actions of the government, all decisions of the courts, and all laws and regulations emanating from parliament."

<snip>

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/04/us-trade-deal-full-frontal-assault-on-democracy

As far as the TPP goes, the U.S. is pushing for ISDS to be included despite opposition from other countries.

[djean111]

1. The TPP apologists and those who bleat that we don't know what is in it - make me sick.

This is the sort of thing that is killing the Democratic Party, not us emo-progs or whatever the fuck other deliberately marginalizing name (doesn't work, sorry!) we are called.

[malaise]

2. They're planning to attack our smoking ban as well

Unefuggingbelievable

[cali]

3. merely the tip of the ISDS iceberg

but I keep getting shocked by it.

and by President Obama's support for it.