The Obama administration is pursuing a free trade agreement with the European Union that would grant corporations new political power to challenge an array of regulations both at home and abroad, according to an administration official involved in the negotiations.
While the plan is still in its early stages, the effort alarms consumer and environmental advocates who worry it will lead to a rollback of important rules and put multinational companies on the same political plain as sovereign nations.
If states are unable to pass and enforce laws within their borders, it could change the nature of their community and government, nonprofit groups emphasize. Exactly how broad these corporate political powers will be is undetermined, but one aspect of the agreement, known as "investor-state dispute resolution," would allow a company to appeal a regulatory rule or law to an international court, most likely theWorld Bank. The international body would be given authority to impose economic sanctions against any country that violated its verdict, including the United States....
"The dirty little secret about [the negotiation] is that it is not mainly about trade, but rather would target for elimination the strongest consumer, health, safety, privacy, environmental and other public interest policies on either side of the Atlantic," said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch. "The starkest evidence ... is the plan for it to include the infamous investor-state system that empowers individual corporations and investors to skirt domestic courts and laws and drag signatory governments to foreign tribunals."
The Obama administration is also pursuing an aggressive investor-state resolution system under the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal with several Pacific nations.The Huffington Post
Obama's EU Trade Deal Would Include New Political Powers For Corporations
Zach Carter and Ryan Grim
The New World Order conspiracy theory coming true with the US forfeiting sovereignty to transnational corporations and international orgs?
8 comments:
Americans should be all over this. As this has already happened in a smaller scale within the EU and has been going on over the years since the Eu started.
Be ware of this authoritarian and oligarchic move!
Although, I disagree with this particular treaty, the power of the president to make treaties with other countries, which become binding US law following approval by the Senate, is established constitutional practice with clear sanction by the plain language of the Constitution. So I'm appalled by this ridiculous "new world order" conspiracy-mongering. What next Tom? Are you going to post about UN blue helmets massing in secret caves to overthrow the White Man and drain our precious bodily fluids?
Dan, I think that giving transnational a piece of US sovereignty is traitorous. Call me a conspiracy theorist if you want. This is a neoliberal powerplay that runs around the democratic process once the treaty is approved and signed.
Occupy Dallas and our allies were all over this when they came to Addison, Tx to hold a round of TPP talks in May 2012.
dan, i'm mostly with tom on this because we have the historical precedent of previous trade agreements.
for a couple of examples, if you haven't already, take a look at the wto's financial service agreement (deregulation) and nafta's chapter 11.
public citizen's global trade watch has been very good on demystifying these issues:
http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=783
"Around the world, there are calls for robust regulations of banks and the financial sector. There is a new global conseunsus for reregulation in the aftermath of the 2008 global economic crisis. But there is a seeming total lack of awareness that most of the world's countries are bound to expansive financial services deregulation requirements imposed by the World Trade Organization (WTO) and various Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). These terms lock in domestically, and export internationally, the model of extreme financial service deregulation that most analysts consider a prime cause of the global financial crisis. Deregulation (not only liberalization) of the financial service sector - including banking, insurance, asset management, pension funds, securities, and more - is among the most important, but least discussed, aspects of the WTO and FTAs. These onerous terms are being replicated and expanded in trade deals now under negotiation like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) "free trade" agreement."
some links:
http://my.firedoglake.com/selise/2009/03/13/lori-wallachs-testimony-on-global-financial-deregulation/
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB65/
and this a decent blog to follow:
http://citizen.typepad.com/eyesontrade/
If the treaty is bad, then don't make the treaty. Tell your Senators to vote against it if it is negotiated.
But I don't see what is so evil about living in a world in which we share power with other countries. My town is not fully sovereign; we control some things but the state of new Hampshire controls other things. And New Hampshire is not fully sovereign; it controls some things but the US government controls other things. Should the US government control everything so as to ward off the "new world order"?
Let's remember that for a treaty to get approved and become binding US law, it has to receive the approval of 60% of the Senate - even more than a regular law. So the provisions of treaties have to go through the elected legislature. The president doesn't just get to declare one by fiat.
How can this be "treasonous"? Are you saying the founders are all traitors because they built a process into the constitution for making treaties with other nations?
But I don't see what is so evil about living in a world in which we share power with other countries.
These treaties are not just sharing power with other countries. It is sharing power with non-state entities, which is the basis of the NWO conspiracy theory about losing sovereignty to the UN. The real issues is losing sovereignty to transnational corps, including "US" corps.
I don't see what is so evil about living in a world in which we share power with other countries...
That provides the perfect excuse for elites to implement unpopular policies.
They will say: maybe it's bad, but we can't change them. We're bound by international treaties, you see.
Also, citizens inside each of the treaty-bound countries will be unable to change policies via the ballot box, because the power of their elected representatives will be circumscribed in advance.
In short, this is the history of the eurozone, where it is impossible - repeat, impossible - to change policies as defined by treaties. The ECB will rule forever, as the euro fathers had prescribed, while hapless politicians from left or right (the labels don't mean anything, in practice) make impossible to fulfill promises to their electorates.
So sad to observe overseas analysts still under the sway of internationalism after witnessing the euro area disaster broadcast live since 2008.
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