Merijn Knibbe — Socializing losses, privatising gains: bilateral investment treaties

Milieudefensie published a new report about these treaties. From the report:

Even insiders agree that ISDS undermines democratic decision making. An international arbitrator has summed it up nicely: “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.” That many “healthy, vibrant democracies have signed on to investor state dispute settlement” does not change the fact that national legal (democratic) systems are by definition bypassed when international investors – mostly transnational corporations – are enabled to challenge democratic policies for interfering with their profits before ad hoc and non-transparent investment tribunals. In addition, international investment agreements generally do not contain any provisions to exhaust local remedies before reverting to international arbitration. ISDS enables transnational corporations to bring a case directly against a country. In the eyes of its advocates this adds to the expediency of the system. But critics argue that ISDS gives transnational corporations a powerful tool to challenge a wide range of government regulation and public interest measures. Direct access to investment arbitration allows foreign investors to bypass the domestic legal system and effectively grants them more rights than domestic investors, effectively and unfairly undermining their competitiveness. The ISDS system not only lacks independence, accountability, transparency and coherence in law, it also makes little sense in economic terms as it appears to be inconsistent with the general free market paradigm…

Then present situation is already anti-democratic, and TPP and TIPP significantly up the ante.

Real-World Economics Review Blog
Socializing losses, privatising gains: bilateral investment treatiesMerijn Knibbe