"Since 2000, hundreds of foreign investors have sued more than half of the world’s countries, claiming damages for a wide range of government actions that they say have threatened their profits" (The Guardian 2015).
RecentlyTransCanada filed 2 lawsuits against the US because Obama killed the Keystone Pipeline. Philip Morris has sued a number of countries, including Uruguay, for monetary compensation due to government measures that discourage smoking & impact the company's profits.
What do you think about these companies' actions & their rights through international trade agreements to sue?
The TPP which Obama is pushing through in the upcoming lame duck session will make those lawsuits look like child's play. What is even worse is that the mediators will be corporate appointed stooges who have no promise of impartiality as a judge would hearing the case. Guess who wins? The pay offs and being worked out now with Congress.
Yes, we must work hard as both individuals and members of groups to see that the TPP is a no-go.
Fifteen years ago, a minor niche within the legal business, hundreds of foreign investors have sued more than half of the world’s countries, claiming damages for a wide range of government actions that they say have threatened their profits.
The International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and similar venues in London, Paris, Hong Kong, the Hague, et al is where a foreign investor can force a government to change its laws to please the investor as opposed to the investor complying with the laws they find in the country. The sums awarded in damages are so vast that investment funds have taken notice: corporations’ claims against states are now seen as assets that can be invested in or used as leverage to secure multimillion-dollar loans. - https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 … ttip-icsid
ICSID registered 80 cases during the first 34 years of its existence, from 1966 to 2000. In the 14 years since then, it has registered 418, including nearly 200 cases currently in arbitration. In the last decade, the number of cases involving oil, gas, and mining companies has dramatically increased. Today, close to half of cases pending before ICSID tribunals are related to natural resource disputes. There is no appeal process at ICSID, only an annulment process through which the procedural legitimacy of the tribunal can be questioned. Governments and companies alike in recent years have begun urging ICSID to create an appellate process.- https://www.beaconreader.com/climate-co … ental-laws
So why do countries accept trade deals with this blatantly pro-corporate mechanism? The argument goes that without this provision, there would be a serious lack of foreign investment. There may be some truth to this, but other cases show that it is quite exaggerated. Brazil, for example, has never agreed to a trade deal with ISDS provision, and they continue to receive plenty of foreign investment. Private corporations should not have the option of suing a nation whenever they feel like a rule or law has effected their profit rate. This is simply a part of doing business; an inherent aspect of capitalism. Investing is never risk-free; there are natural, social, and political changes that could always hurt an investment. More importantly, when a company’s product is hurting people or the environment, government has the right and obligation to stop it. - http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/2/11 … For-Profit
For USA,
15 cases as respondent state
138 cases as home state
https://icsid.worldbank.org/apps/ICSIaD … fault.aspx
http://www.uncitral.org/uncitral/en/unc … rules.html
http://investmentpolicyhub.unctad.org/ISDSg]
Tell your Congressional representatives: by visiting https://act.350.org/sign/congress-tpp/
I oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership because it is a threat to our climate and our democracy. Vote NO on Fast Track legislation that would allow this bad deal to move forward.
Thanks for your wonderful response, especially the links.
You're welcome. Didn't really research it until your post. Sometimes I need a kick in the side of the head to start thinking about what really pisses me off in this world - other than Crumpton
Did you watch Bernie's talk this past week? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3LC8kYe0QM
As always, he is inspiring as he tries to work, and motivate others to work, within the system.
by Don W 10 years ago
In many of the threads in the politics forum, the government seems to be the target for a lot of people's frustration. Why isn't the focus on the corporations that have steadily usurped influence away from ordinary people?When I say usurped influence, I'm not talking about world conspiracies. In my...
by rhamson 8 years ago
"All we know (based on leaks) is (1) it establishes an independent tribunal that can force nations to pay global corporations any lost profits due to that nation’s health, safety, environmental, labor, or securities regulations, (2) extends patent protections for U.S. pharmaceutical companies,...
by Julianna 15 years ago
Any ideas as Americans on how we should take back our Country? How much money did we borrow from China? Why are we borrowing at all? Outsourcing is horrible especially when it takes from the U.S. Citizens how do we as a country make the bleeding stop? I am really not good with politics however I...
by KK Trainor 12 years ago
Texas executed Humberto Leal yesterday evening. Leal murdered a 16 year old girl after raping and brutalizing her and bashing her head in with a huge chunk of asphalt. He was kind enough to leave a stick with a nail on the end of it sticking out of her vagina. As a Mexican national, Leal was living...
by A Thousand Words 10 years ago
There's no one to step on/take advantage of anymore?Capitalism is defined as:- free-market system: an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and distribution of goods, characterized by a free competitive market and motivation by profit. Doesn't raise any red flags...
by Scott Belford 9 years ago
47 conservative Republican Senators signed a letter to Iran intended to undercut Presidential foreign policy. This breaks over 200 years of precedent, and probably violates the separation of Powers part of the Constitution. Should Americans, after puking over their blatantly unAmerican...
Copyright © 2024 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. HubPages® is a registered trademark of The Arena Platform, Inc. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.
Copyright © 2024 Maven Media Brands, LLC and respective owners.
As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.
For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy
Show DetailsNecessary | |
---|---|
HubPages Device ID | This is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. |
Login | This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. |
Google Recaptcha | This is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy) |
Akismet | This is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Google Analytics | This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Traffic Pixel | This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. |
Amazon Web Services | This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy) |
Cloudflare | This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Hosted Libraries | Javascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy) |
Features | |
---|---|
Google Custom Search | This is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Maps | Some articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Charts | This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy) |
Google AdSense Host API | This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Google YouTube | Some articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Vimeo | Some articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Paypal | This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Login | You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Maven | This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy) |
Marketing | |
---|---|
Google AdSense | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Google DoubleClick | Google provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Index Exchange | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Sovrn | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Ads | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
AppNexus | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Openx | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Rubicon Project | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
TripleLift | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Say Media | We partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy) |
Remarketing Pixels | We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. |
Conversion Tracking Pixels | We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. |
Statistics | |
---|---|
Author Google Analytics | This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy) |
Comscore | ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Tracking Pixel | Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy) |
Clicksco | This is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy) |