Transpacific Partnership TPP

<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">   =</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">http://www.peaceandjustice.org/video-challenging-corporate-nationhood/</font></p><p><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></span></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">// personhood? see alaso mcconn covid liability immunity</font></p><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/corporate-lawyers-openly-discuss-suing-nations-over-profits-lost-to-covid-19-measures-ticking-time-bomb/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/corporate-lawyers-openly-discuss-suing-nations-over-profits-lost-to-covid-19-measures-ticking-time-bomb/</font></a></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Corporate lawyers openly discuss suing nations over profits lost to COVID-19 measures: ‘Ticking time bomb’</b></font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jake Johnson / Common Dreams May 21, 2020</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Prominent corporate law firms representing major businesses in the United States, Italy, Spain, and other nations are openly discussing the possibility of companies using a secretive and notorious legal process to sue countries over future profits lost due to government efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic.</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On Monday, the non-profit research group Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) documented numerous examples of high-powered corporate law firms—including Ropes & Gray, Alston & Bird, and Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan—publicly licking their chops over the lucrative opportunity presented by the Covid-19 crisis and government attempts to fight it.</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ropes & Gray wrote in an alert on its website on April 28 that “for companies with foreign investments,” the <b>investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system enshrined by thousands of trade agreements across the world “could be a powerful tool to recover or prevent loss resulting from Covid-19 related government actions.”</b></font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Governments have responded to Covid-19 with a panoply of measures, including travel restrictions, limitations on business operations, and tax benefits,” the alert reads. “Notwithstanding their legitimacy, these measures can negatively impact businesses by reducing profitability, delaying operations, or being excluded from government benefits.</span>”</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</span></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Lawyers from Sidley, a firm headquartered in Chicago, wrote on May 8 that “where a company prevails in its investment treaty claims, it may be able to recover all the losses that flowed from the government measures that damaged the company.”</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CEO noted that the ISDS system hands “sweeping powers to foreign investors, including the peculiar privilege to sue states in an arbitration court system.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">”<b> The ISDS chapter of the Trans Pacific Partnership was one of the most widely denounced components of the 12-nation trade deal that was ultimately never ratified by the U.S. Congress.</b></span></font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“In ISDS tribunals companies can claim dizzying sums in compensation for government actions that have allegedly damaged their investments, either directly through expropriation or indirectly through regulations of virtually any kind,” CEO wrote. The number of ISDS suits has skyrocketed in the last decade, and so has the amount of money involved.”</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The research group highlighted several scenarios in which corporations could challenge countries over coronavirus-related government actions, including lowering drug prices, reducing rent and utility bills, temporarily nationalizing private hospitals, and providing access to clean water.</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">An Alston & Bird lawyer said during a recent webinar that “governments… forcing producers to sell drugs at significantly discounted prices and/ or taking the intellectual property for themselves and/or disseminating that intellectual property to third parties without permission”</b><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> constitute “takings”</b><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> that could be challenged under existing investment treaties.</b></font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“The lawyers’ enthusiasm is not based in fantasy,” CEO wrote. “In the past 25 years over 1,000 known investor-state lawsuits have been filed. Investors have won a significant amount of ISDS claims as arbitral tribunals ruled that it was illegal to interfere with prices of essential goods, restrict or tax the export of vital products, roll back incentives to investments—and the list goes on.”</b></font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“As states struggle with the pandemic and with rebuilding their economies,” the group warned, “ISDS cases could mean huge extra financial burden.”</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CEO</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@corporateeurope</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the midst of the #COVID19 crisis, corporations are preparing to sue states over pandemic measures.</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Our latest report reveals how lawyers urge big business to defend its profits and challenge the emergency measures with #ISDS cases. https://corporateeurope.org/en/2020/05/cashing-pandemic-how-lawyers-are-preparing-sue-states-over-covid-19-response-measures …  #stopISDS</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">View image on Twitter</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect, wrote Wednesday that progressives have long viewed ISDS as a disastrous system that allows powerful corporations to “lock in a low level of regulation or extract cash if any country dares to try to protect their citizens.”</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s so unbelievably shocking to see corporate lawyers actively discussing having foreign investors use ISDS to challenge countries over their coronavirus lockdown measures, and try to extract ‘expected future profits’ from them,” Dayen wrote.</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“There is no example yet of a foreign investor filing such a claim,” Dayen added. “This bears watching, or maybe a pre-emptive strike to defuse this ticking time bomb. Incidentally, the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment has proposed an ISDS moratorium during the pandemic.”</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Dayen</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@ddayen</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If this is at all true it means that corporations will sue in extrajudicial super-courts for the expected profits they had to forego when countries put lockdown measures in place.</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Oh. My. God.https://corporateeurope.org/en/2020/05/cashing-pandemic-how-lawyers-are-preparing-sue-states-over-covid-19-response-measures …</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cashing in on the pandemic: how lawyers are preparing to sue states over COVID-19 response measures</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As governments take action to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and prevent economic collapse big law firms urge corportions to challenge governments' emergency measures in order to defend its profits. In...</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">corporateeurope.org</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Transnational Institute (TNI), a think tank based in Amsterdam, is calling on governments to “take urgent action to make sure that transnational corporations and investment lawyers do not become beneficiaries of this pandemic, at the expense of people’s well-being and health.”</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an April 20 report, TNI urged nations to:</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Suspend all trade and investment treaty negotiations;</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Take all necessary steps to terminate (unilaterally or multilaterally) existing treaties;</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Institute a comprehensive review (cost-benefit analysis) of their current and planned investment agreements;</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Withdraw consent to ISDS, to limit immediate exposure to investor lawsuits;</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Default on the payment of outstanding debts as a result of ISDS awards. Or, at least, discuss ISDS debt relief and/or debt restructuring with creditors.</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Just as the pandemic is revealing profound health inequities and the dangers of agro-industrial food systems, it is also showing the dangers of trade and investment systems that put corporate profits above health and life,” TNI researchers wrote. “There is no place for trade and investment agreements that allow investors to profit from suing countries in crisis or seeking to cash-in from scarce public resources.”</font></div></div><p><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" /></p><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><p><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></span></p><p><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="font-family: "><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.alternet.org/environment/3-ways-trans-pacific-partnership-will-help-corporations-while-ruining-climate</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Free trade deals, and in particular the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), have taken a beating this election season. Most of the noise on trade from Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton has focused on the loss of jobs linked to the offshoring. Much less attention has been paid to the serious impact the TPP and past trade agreements will have on our ability to respond to climate change.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a <a href="http://www.iatp.org/climate-cost-of-free-trade" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">new report</a> on the TPP and climate commitments made by countries as part of the Paris climate agreement, we found that trade rules consistently benefit multinational corporations in high greenhouse gas emitting sectors like agriculture and energy, while creating barriers for governments in setting climate-related policies.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Our analysis found that the Trans Pacific Partnership expands the scope of past trade agreements to harm the climate in three important ways:</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1. Countries and corporations can challenge climate-related policies.</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A series of rulings at the World Trade Organization (WTO), most recently in February against India, have ruled against renewable energy programs that incentivize local production and green jobs. Many countries, and several U.S. states, have similar green jobs programs. The TPP goes further than WTO rules by also including special corporate rights provisions called the Investor State Dispute Settlement system. Under investor state, foreign corporations can sue governments when they feel government action impinges on their future profits. In June, TransCanada formally filed an ISDS suit seeking $15 billion in damages from the U.S. government under NAFTA, charging that the Obama administration had unfairly rejected the Keystone pipeline. Other corporate rights cases have challenged bans on offshore drilling to protect wildlife, and a ban on fracking to protect waterways. (For more, see Buzzfeed’s excellent <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/chrishamby/super-court?utm_term=.os23VzR7w#.kl2gnQO2P" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">investigation of ISDS</a> in action)</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2. A structure to challenge new regulations that could benefit the climate.</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The TPP, like other free trade agreements, reinforces an industrial model of agricultural production favored by agribusiness companies like Monsanto, Smithfield and Cargill that is significant contributor to climate change. The global food system, including agricultural production and associated land use, is responsible for <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/one-third-of-our-greenhouse-gas-emissions-come-from-agriculture-1.11708" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">one-third of global GHGs</a>. The TPP tips the scales in favor of these agribusiness giants by ensuring food safety standards prioritize trade over public health or environmental sustainability, for example. Biotech companies benefit from the TPP’s intellectual property rights provisions related to seeds and new rules to handle cases of genetic contamination (when a genetically engineered food approved in one country is traded to another country that has not approved it). Restrictions on protecting local markets enable agricultural dumping (exporting at below cost) into TPP countries. And corporations from many sectors will benefit from a committee on regulatory coherence, which provides an early warning system on new regulations in any TPP country.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3. New climate policies will likely conflict with trade rules.</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As we enter into this new era of post-Paris climate policy, approaches like a carbon tax or carbon markets will undoubtedly be affected by trade rules. The practice of moving GHG emissions from one country to another (ie moving manufacturing from the U.S. to China), without actually reducing the total level of global emissions, (aka carbon leakage) remains a serious challenge for carbon taxes and markets. One leading proposal to address carbon leakage is through border taxes or tariffs, though doing so would run counter to the trade liberalization goal of tariff reduction or elimination found in the TPP and other trade regimes.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The success of TPP countries in meeting their climate goals is critical in the global race to slow climate change. TPP countries like the U.S., Australia and Japan are major global producers, buyers and users of oil, natural gas and coal. Other TPP countries like Malaysia, Peru and Chile are dealing with expanded mining and agriculture operations that are leading to massive deforestation. TPP countries like the U.S., Mexico, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and Chile are already developing various types of carbon pricing policy.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As countries take action on climate, conflicts between trade rules and climate goals will escalate. Unfortunately, in most cases trade concerns will win out. While trade deals like the TPP include strong enforcement tools to settle disputes, the Paris climate agreement relies on voluntary pledges.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The good news is that the TPP is in trouble. With its surprisingly high profile in the Presidential campaign, and <a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/august_2016/gopers_unaffiliateds_down_on_tpp_more_than_democrats_are" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">plummeting public support</a>, there’s a real opportunity to stop the TPP in its tracks, and to take bold steps toward reforming existing trade deals.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It is impossible to separate the outcomes of current trade regimes from the ways in which they were negotiated – often in secret, with heavy corporate influence and very little public scrutiny or input. Further, trade agreements should no longer be considered in isolation, or given legal priority over other global agreements. Trade policy is too influential, and provides too many obstacles for successful governing on issues like climate change, health, food security and natural resource management.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The official signing of the Paris climate treaty is an important first step toward a global response to climate change. But no climate deal will work if it is not supported by other policies. The TPP and the WTO are outdated trade regimes modeled on 19th century ideas. The 21st century demands something very different—trade rules that move countries together towards sustainability, starting with the urgent need to curb greenhouse gas emissions and support adaptations to climate change.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">You can read the full report: <a href="http://www.iatp.org/climate-cost-of-free-trade" target="_blank" style="text-decoration: none;">The Climate Cost of Free Trade: How the TPP and trade deals undermine the Paris climate agreement</a>.</font></p><div wibbitz="embed-main-player" style="line-height: 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" /></font></p><div class="bio-new body_environment" style="width: 630px; font-style: italic; line-height: 22px; height: auto; border-top: 3px solid rgb(223, 223, 218); clear: both; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="author-bio"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ben Lilliston is Director of Corporate Strategies and Climate Change at the<a href="http://www.iatp.org/" style="text-decoration: none;">Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy</a>. He previously served as IATP’s Communications Director and Vice President for Programs. He has worked as a researcher, writer and editor at a number of organizations including the Center for Study of Responsive Law, the Corporate Crime Reporter, Multinational Monitor, Cancer Prevention Coalition and Sustain. He’s a frequently published writer, most recently as a contributor to Mandate for Change (Lexington), and previously as the co-author of the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Genetically-Engineered-Food-Self-Defense-Consumers/dp/1569244693/?tag=alternorg08-20" style="text-decoration: none;">Genetically Engineered Foods: A Guide for Consumers</a> (Avalon).</font></p></div></div>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">regulatory takings under nafta much worse tpp</font>

<a href="https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-august-29-2016/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-august-29-2016/</font></a>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">stiglitz</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></p><p><a href="http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/buzzfeed-super-courts-overrule-government"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/buzzfeed-super-courts-overrule-government</font></a></p><div class="the_body body_rights clearfix" style="line-height: 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BuzzFeed is running a very important investigative series called <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/globalsupercourt" target="blank" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">“Secrets of a Global Super Court.”</a> It describes what they call “a parallel legal universe, open only to corporations and largely invisible to everyone else.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Existing “trade” agreements like NAFTA allow corporations to sue governments for passing laws and regulations that limit their profits. They set up special “<a href="https://ourfuture.org/20140915/corporate-courts-a-big-red-flag-on-trade-agreements" target="blank" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">corporate courts</a>” in which corporate attorneys decide the cases. These corporate “super courts” sit <em>above</em> governments and their own court systems, and countries and their citizens <em>cannot even appeal</em> the rulings.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The 2014 post <a href="https://ourfuture.org/20140915/corporate-courts-a-big-red-flag-on-trade-agreements" target="blank" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">“Corporate Courts — A Big Red Flag On “Trade” Agreements”</a> explained the origin and rationale for these corporate courts:</font></p><blockquote><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Picture a poor “banana republic” country ruled by a dictator and his cronies. A company might want to invest in a factory or railroad — things that would help the people of that country as well as deliver a return to the company. But the company worries that the dictator might decide to just seize the factory and give it to his brother-in-law. … Agreements to protect investors, and allowing a tribunal not based in such countries (courts where the judges are cronies of the dictator), make sense in such situations.</font></p></blockquote><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Here’s the thing: Corporate investors see themselves as legitimate “makers” and see citizens and voters and their governments — always demanding taxes and fair pay and public safety — to be illegitimate “takers.” Corporations are all about “one-dollar-one-vote” top-down systems of governance. They consider “one-person-one-vote” democracy to be an illegitimate, non-functional system that meddles with their more-important profit interests. They consider any governmental legal or regulatory system to be “burdensome.” They consider taxes as “theft” of the money they have “earned.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To them, <em>any government anywhere</em> is just another “banana republic” from which they need special protection.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Trade” Deals Bypass Borders</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Investors and their corporations have set up a way to get around the borders of these meddling governments, called “trade” deals. The trade deals elevate global corporate interests above any national interest. When a country signs a “trade” deal, that country is agreeing not to do things that protect the country’s own national interest — like impose tariffs to protect key industries or national strategies, or pass laws and regulations — when those things interfere with the larger, more important global corporate “trade” interests.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now, corporations are pushing two new “trade” agreements — one covering Pacific-are countries and one covering Atlantic-area countries — that expand these corporate rights and move governments out of their way. The Pacific agreement is called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Atlantic one is called the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Secrets of a Global Super Court</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BuzzFeed’s series on these corporate courts, <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/globalsupercourt" target="blank" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">“Secrets of a Global Super Court,”</a>explains the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions in the “trade” deals that have come to dominate the world economy. These provisions set up “<a href="https://ourfuture.org/20140915/corporate-courts-a-big-red-flag-on-trade-agreements" target="blank" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">corporate courts</a>” that place corporate profits above the interests of governments and set up a court system that sits above the court systems of the countries in the “trade” deals.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Part One, <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/chrishamby/super-court?utm_term=.mcW7LOmVy#.agyVA5MpO" target="blank" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">“Inside The Global “Club” That Helps Executives Escape Their Crimes,” </a>describes, “A parallel legal universe, open only to corporations and largely invisible to everyone else, helps executives convicted of crimes escape punishment.”</font></p><blockquote><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a little-noticed 2014 dissent, US Chief Justice John Roberts warned that ISDS arbitration panels hold the alarming power to review a nation’s laws and “effectively annul the authoritative acts of its legislature, executive, and judiciary.” ISDS arbitrators, he continued, “can meet literally anywhere in the world” and “sit in judgment” on a nation’s “sovereign acts.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[. . .]</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Reviewing publicly available information for about 300 claims filed during the past five years, BuzzFeed News found more than 35 cases in which the company or executive seeking protection in ISDS was accused of criminal activity, including money laundering, embezzlement, stock manipulation, bribery, war profiteering, and fraud.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Among them: a bank in Cyprus that the US government accused of <a href="https://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/frn/pdf/FBME_FR_20160325.pdf" target="blank" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">financing terrorism and organized crime</a>, an oil company executive accused of embezzling millions from the impoverished African nation of Burundi, and the Russian oligarch known as “<a href="https://www.pugachevsergei.com/" target="blank" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">the Kremlin’s banker</a>.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">… One lawyer who regularly represents governments said he’s seen evidence of corporate criminality that he “couldn’t believe.” Speaking on the condition that he not be named because he’s currently handling ISDS cases, he said, “You have a lot of scuzzy sort-of thieves for whom this is a way to hit the jackpot.”</font></p></blockquote><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Part Two, <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/chrishamby/the-billion-dollar-ultimatum?utm_term=.eokV85dBN#.dv2v4P1AL" target="blank" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">“The Billion-Dollar Ultimatum,”</a> looks at how “International corporations that want to intimidate countries have access to a private legal system designed just for them. And to unlock its power, sometimes all it takes is a threat.”</font></p><blockquote><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Of all the ways in which ISDS is used, the most deeply hidden are the threats, uttered in private meetings or ominous letters, that invoke those courts. The threats are so powerful they often eliminate the need to actually bring a lawsuit. Just the knowledge that it could happen is enough.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[. . .] ISDS is so tilted and unpredictable, and the fines the arbitrators can impose are so catastrophically large, that bowing to a company’s demands, however extreme they may be, can look like the prudent choice. Especially for nations struggling to emerge from corrupt dictatorships or to lift their people from decades of poverty, the mere threat of an ISDS claim triggers alarm. A single decision by a panel of three unaccountable, private lawyers, meeting in a conference room on some other continent, could gut national budgets and shake economies to the core.</font></p></blockquote><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Part Three, <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/chrishamby/not-just-a-court-system-its-a-gold-mine?utm_term=.hj7MYq5OB#.hiWz3Q5qV" target="blank" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">“To Bankers, It’s Not Just A Court System, It’s A Gold Mine,”</a>exposes how “Financial companies have figured out how to turn a controversial global legal system to their own very profitable advantage.”</font></p><blockquote><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Indeed, financiers and ISDS lawyers have created a whole new business: prowling for ways to sue nations in ISDS and make their taxpayers fork over huge sums, sometimes in retribution for enforcing basic laws or regulations.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">… The financial industry is pushing novel ISDS claims that countries never could have anticipated — claims that, in some instances, <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3035429-OECD-Investment-Treaties-as-Corporate-Law.html" target="blank" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">would be barred</a> in US courts and those of other developed nations, or that strike at emergency decisions nations make to cope with crises.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">… ISDS gives particular leverage to traders and speculators who chase outsize profits in the developing world. They can buy into local disputes that they have no connection to, then turn the disputes into costly international showdowns. Standard Chartered, for example, bought the debt of a Tanzanian company that was in dire financial straits and racked by scandal; now, the bank has filed an ISDS claim demanding that the nation’s taxpayers hand over the full amount that the private company owed — more than $100 million. Asked to comment, Standard Chartered said its claim is “valid.”</font></p></blockquote><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Dayen explains this last point, in <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/isds-lawsuit-financing-tpp_us_57c48e40e4b09cd22d91f660" target="blank" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">“The Big Problem With The Trans-Pacific Partnership’s Super Court That We’re Not Talking About”</a>: “Financiers will use it to bet on lawsuits, while taxpayers foot the bill.”</font></p><blockquote><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But instead of helping companies resolve legitimate disputes over seized assets, ISDS has increasingly become a way for rich investors to make money by speculating on lawsuits, winning huge awards and forcing taxpayers to foot the bill.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Here’s how it works: Wealthy financiers with idle cash have purchased companies that are well placed to bring an ISDS claim, seemingly for the sole purpose of using that claim to make a buck. Sometimes, they set up shell corporations to <em>create</em> the plaintiffs to bring ISDS cases. And some hedge funds and private equity firms bankroll ISDS cases as third parties — just like billionaire Peter Thiel bankrolled Hulk Hogan in his lawsuit against Gawker Media.</font></p></blockquote><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Part Four of the great BuzzFeed series, <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/globalsupercourt" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(241, 96, 44); text-decoration: none;">“Secrets of a Global Super Court,”</a> is expected to be published later this week.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PCCC Statement</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) released this statement on the ISDS provisions in TPP:</font></p><blockquote><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Under the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Wall Street would be allowed to sue the government in extrajudicial, corporate-run tribunals over any regulation and American taxpayers would be on the hook for damages. This is an outrage. We need more accountability and fairness in our economy – not less. And we need to preserve our ability to make our own rules.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s time for Obama to take notice of the widespread, bipartisan opposition to the TPP and take this agreement off the table before he causes lasting political harm to Democrats with voters.”</font></p></blockquote><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> =</font></p></div>

<p><a href="http://www.globalpossibilities.org/these-are-your-28-tpp-house-democrat-targets/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.globalpossibilities.org/these-are-your-28-tpp-house-democrat-targets/</font></a>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.ecowatch.com/leaked-document-reveals-alarming-new-environmental-threats-of-ttip-1915539193.html</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This morning, as the most recent round of trade negotiations between the U.S. and European Union (EU) began in Brussels, the Guardian reported a leaked document from the EU that reveals its intentions to include new, dangerous language in the proposed energy chapter of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).A Sierra Club analysis of the leaked TTIP proposal finds that it would: • Require the U.S. and the EU "to eliminate all existing restrictions on the export of natural gas in trade between" the two parties;• Undermine clean energy policies, such as renewable portfolio standards or feed-in tariffs, by stating that electricity utilities in the U.S. and the EU shall not discriminate "between types of energy" in granting access to the electrical grid;• Obligate the U.S. and the EU to "foster industry self-regulation" on energy efficiency rather than using mandatory requirements that oblige corporations to boost the energy efficiency of their products; and• Threaten protections against destructive extraction of fossil fuels and natural resources in countries outside of the U.S. and EU."This leaked document goes farther than any past leaked or publicly available TTIP document on energy to reveal the threat that the deal poses to our efforts to protect our climate by fully transitioning to clean energy, Ilana Solomon, director of the Sierra Club's Responsible Trade Program, said."For example, never before have we seen a more explicit and sweeping assertion that all gas export restrictions in the United States should be wiped out under TTIP—a nightmare that would be a giant leap backward in our fight to keep fossil fuels in the ground. This leak, along with the similarly toxic Trans-Pacific Partnership, shows the immediate need for a new model of trade that protects working families, healthy communities and our climate."The leaked document, is the EU's proposal for a Chapter on Energy and Raw Materials, sent from the European Commission to the Trade Policy Committee of the European Council on June 20. A cover note states that the textual proposal "is to be submitted to the United States in advance of the next negotiation round," which began today. The Sierra Club's analysis on key aspects of today's leak can be found here. This is the latest in a string of uncovered TTIP documents. Other leaked TTIP energy proposals include a September 2013 leaked document and a May 2014 leaked document.The leaked TTIP proposal would:• Require unfettered gas exportsThe EU uses a note in the leaked text to state that TTIP "must" include "a legally binding commitment to eliminate all existing restrictions on the export of natural gas in trade between" the U.S. and EU (see initial "disclaimer.") This sweeping TTIP obligation would "eliminate," the abilityof the U.S. Department of Energy to determine whether it is in the public interest to export liquefied natural gas (LNG)—a fossil fuel with high climate emissions—to the EU, the world's third-largest LNG importer. If included, this TTIP rule would facilitate increased LNG exports, greater dependency on a climate-disrupting fossil fuel, more fracking and expanded fossil fuel infrastructure.• Undermine clean energy policiesThe leaked TTIP proposal could undermine U.S. and EU policies that encourage clean energy production, such as renewable portfolio standards that require utilities to increase electricity from renewable sources or feed-in tariffs that give wind and solar power producers preferential access to the electrical grid. The EU's TTIP proposal includes a new provision stating that electricity utilities in the U.S. and EU shall not discriminate "between types of energy" in granting access to the electrical grid, even though that is the very purpose of such U.S. and EU policies that require utilities to favor clean energy over electricity from dirty fossil fuels. The leaked text only allows "limited" exceptions to this rule. To qualify for such an exception, a government could have to prove to a TTIP tribunal that its clean energy policy was "necessary," "objective" and "legitimate"—hurdles that public interest policies have failed to meet in past trade challenges (see Chapter on Energy and Raw Materials, Article 4.)• Obligating the U.S. and the EU to "foster industry self-regulation" on energy efficiencyAnother new EU proposal for TTIP states that the U.S. and EU "shall foster industry self-regulation of energy efficiency requirements" rather than using "mandatory requirements" that oblige corporations to boost the energy efficiency of their products (see Chapter on Energy and Raw Materials, Article 6.2.) The text prescribes this "self-regulating" approach when it "is likely to deliver the policy objectives faster or in a less costly manner" than actually requiring corporations to comply with energy efficiency policies. This provision could threaten the minimum efficiency requirements that the U.S. Department of Energy imposes through its Appliance and Equipment Standards Program on more than 60 types of appliances and equipment, from refrigerators to furnaces, which save consumers billions of dollars while cutting hundreds of millions of tons of climate pollution each year.• Undermine protections against destructive extractionThe proposed TTIP text includes a new provision that would encourage the U.S. and the EU to jointly pressure countries around the world to abandon protections against destructive extractive activities. The provision states that the U.S. and EU "shall cooperate" to "reduce or eliminate trade and investment distorting measures in third countries affecting energy and raw materials" (seeChapter on Energy and Raw Materials, Article 8). That is, the U.S. and EU must try to reduce or eliminate environmental policies in non-TTIP countries if they inhibit trade or investment in fossil fuels like oil, coal and gas; natural resources like wood; and minerals like copper and lead (all of which are included in the text's definitions of "energy" and "raw materials"—see Chapter on Energy and Raw Materials, Annex I). Such TTIP-required pressure from the U.S. and EU would threaten many countries' protections against fossil fuel extraction, logging and mining. This dangerous TTIP proposal undercuts the text's weak proposal for the U.S. and EU to cooperate to "promote" positive goals such as "corporate social responsibility," "the efficient use of resources" and "safety and environmental protection for offshore oil, gas and mining operations" (see Chapter on Energy and Raw Materials, Article 8).• Read the Sierra Club's report on how TTIP and TPP investment rules would empower major polluters to challenge U.S. climate protections in private tribunals here: sc.org/climate-roadblocks ==http://www.globalpossibilities.org/another-corporation-suing-our-government-thanks-to-trade-agreements/Dave Johnson  CAMPAIGN FOR AMERICA‘S FUTURE</font></p>

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