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WaPo signals one - of the many - provisions which should cause concern in the Transpacific Partnership treaty.
The United States is in the final stages of negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive free-trade agreement with Mexico, Canada, Japan, Singapore and seven other countries. Who will benefit from the TPP? American workers? Consumers? Small businesses? Taxpayers? Or the biggest multinational corporations in the world?
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One strong hint is buried in the fine print of the closely guarded draft. The provision, an increasingly common feature of trade agreements, is called “Investor-State Dispute Settlement,” or ISDS. The name may sound mild, but don’t be fooled. ISDS would allow foreign companies to challenge U.S. laws — and potentially to pick up huge payouts from taxpayers — without ever stepping foot in a U.S. court.
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Here’s how it would work. Imagine that the United States bans a toxic chemical that is often added to gasoline because of its health and environmental consequences. If a foreign company that makes the toxic chemical opposes the law, it would normally have to challenge it in a U.S. court. But with ISDS, the company could skip the U.S. courts and go before an international panel of arbitrators. If the company won, the ruling couldn’t be challenged in U.S. courts, and the arbitration panel could require American taxpayers to cough up millions — and even billions — of dollars in damages.
If that seems shocking, buckle your seat belt. ISDS could lead to gigantic fines, but it wouldn’t employ independent judges. Instead, highly paid corporate lawyers would go back and forth between representing corporations one day and sitting in judgment the next. Maybe that makes sense in an arbitration between two corporations, but not in cases between corporations and governments. If you’re a lawyer looking to maintain or attract high-paying corporate clients, how likely are you to rule against those corporations when it’s your turn in the judge’s seat?
If the tilt toward giant corporations wasn’t clear enough, consider who would get to use this special court: only international investors, which are, by and large, big corporations. So if a Vietnamese company with U.S. operations wanted to challenge an increase in the U.S. minimum wage, it could use ISDS. But if an American labor union believed Vietnam was allowing Vietnamese companies to pay slave wages in violation of trade commitments, the union would have to make its case in the Vietnamese courts.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by K_benzoate on Sunday March 01 2015, @10:44AM
We in the US who oppose the TPP are the minority--because most people have absolutely no idea what the TPP is. This is too complicated for the average person to understand or care about, and yet it is also incredibly important. There's very few mechanisms in place to inform the electorate of such things; we can't count on the media, which has been completely silent on TPP.
Climate change is real and primarily caused by human activity.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 01 2015, @11:16AM
I can see where you're coming from and also the frustration that comes with the territory.
But allow me to ask rhethorically:
Is the average American really more (or less) stupid than the average Vietnamese, French or Mexican? I doubt it, and people there can and do understand the problems of ISDS, if properly explained.
Aren't you the guys continually touting your freedom of expression, press, democratic ideals, and so on? TTIP was originally *kept secret* intentionally, nevertheless most of the European public now has a (admittedly blurry) opinion on e.g. ISDS through the mainstream (!) media. Politicians are feeling the resistance and are starting to react to it. You're not saying that the US is capable of less, or is being held down by it's rulers? If so ... well, draw your own conclusions.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 01 2015, @11:50AM
The population of the country with a decent education and enough non-working hours who also watch non-standard news (mainstream news is all violent crimes and celebrity news) is dwindling in the good ol USA. Free to work until exhaustion, yes. Free with independent thought, not so much anymore. It's sad. The last two elections really saw most people fall into two camps: completely thoughtlessly repeating hateful propaganda and a much smaller population with a clue. Education isn't valued more higher than tribal divisions including religion. Do yourself a favor and don't expect much from us anymore.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 01 2015, @04:13PM
Dwindling? Most people are unintelligent, and it has always been so.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 01 2015, @05:55PM
Just looking down at stupid ignorant people doesn't work so well in a democracies and "somewhat democratic" countries if you're also at ground level and not one of those ones already at the top.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 01 2015, @11:56AM
Is the average American really more (or less) stupid than the average Vietnamese, French or Mexican? I doubt it, and people there can and do understand the problems of ISDS, if properly explained.
The larger the population the more difficult it becomes to get any significant portion to agree on anything. Since TTP, TTIP, etc are not put up to a vote - and in fact are being done in secret - then there is very, very little chance most people in the U.S. will ever hear about it.
The more regulations a government has the better chance a TTP "partner" country will have a company that runs into a law that hands them a payday. All these things point to the U.S. as a cash machine.
I'm going to open a one-person office in Mexico and qualify as an international corporation. Then I'll find some obscure law in one of these countries and start suing more often than a patent troll. Capitalism: where greed is the seed of success.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheRaven on Sunday March 01 2015, @01:17PM
Is the average American really more (or less) stupid than the average Vietnamese, French or Mexican?
The issue is the stupidity of the voter. One of the reasons that representative democracy is more popular than direct democracy is that running a modern country is complex. Pretty much everyone had time to be fully abreast of the issues that affected the Athenian city-state. This isn't really true for a modern country, so we elect people to work full time on understanding the issues and acting as we would if we were fully cognisant of the facts.
The problem is that these representatives increasingly don't reflect either the views or interests of the electorate and there are no alternative candidates who will. I'd prefer to see a mechanism of direct democracy with recursive proxy voting, where for each issue (or range of issues) people could delegate someone to be their proxy. This person could, in turn, delegate their vote, and so on. At any point, if your interests are not being represented, you could withdraw your proxy and (after a short period, to stop people changing every few minutes and making it impossible for anyone to negotiate) either appoint a new proxy or be eligible to vote yourself.
Here (in the UK) I've seen people campaigning against TTIP on the streets for the last six months. I've signed their petitions, but most people walk past them without becoming any more aware of the issues.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Sunday March 01 2015, @03:28PM
The voter is lied to constantly. The corporate monoliths that run media networks also build the bombs and pay for the politicians.
Turn on US television and you will here 7 lies and logical fallacies supporting bizarre and narcissistic fantasies in as many minutes.
Then - after being processed like a McDonald's cheeseburger - the US voter is plopped into an artificially constructed "district". This is an interesting system in the US, by which the candidate gets to select his voters - not vice versa, as done in the free world.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @03:45AM
Pretty much everyone had time to be fully abreast of the issues that affected the Athenian city-state.
Right. In the days before modern technology that allows people to complete tasks more effectively and efficiently, everyone truly had more time on their hands.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Sunday March 01 2015, @02:47PM
According to an OECD survey [oecd.org], American students are below average in math and slightly below average in reading and science. French students did much better, particularly in math, although not as well as the Americans in financial literacy.
So yes, it does look like the average American is either more stupid or more ignorant than the average French person. Anecdotally, one of my classmates in a US high school was a girl who had lost at least a years' worth of education because she and her family spent a while escaping from Bosnia, and even with all that and speaking her third language she was about 2 years ahead of the rest of the toughest math class the school offered and found our curriculum laughably quaint.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 01 2015, @05:37PM
You're talking about a country where a large percentage of the populus believes the earth is 6000 years old and was magically conjured by a bearded sky fairy.
(Score: 1) by hottabasco on Monday March 02 2015, @06:13AM
I see comments agreeing that the average American is stupid: I question that – although I am British so I admit I have limited basis for this. I guess that the average American is quite capable of understanding TPP / TIPP, but the problem is:
1) Both the media and politicians have no interest about explaining TPP/ TIPP in an accessible way.
2) The average American is naive, in that they think they can get by just fine without having to think hard about stuff.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @05:48PM
Most people are stupid and/or ignorant. If you're one of the smarter ones you'd realize that just pointing out they're stupid, gloating or mocking them isn't going to get you far.
Those already in power are exploiting them (and thus the rest). You're probably not one of those in power. What can you do so that things get better for you?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Sunday March 01 2015, @01:09PM
One thing is easy to understand: Secrecy. Totally inappropriate secrecy.
These trade agreements are being kept secret, and the reasons given for why, when they are given at all, are transparent bull. There is no good reason for the secrecy. We don't have to know anything of what is in the deals to know they are bad. The fact they are secret is enough to know to reject them. What has leaked out confirms our suspicions. The negotiators, who seem to be in the pockets of large corporate interests, are trying to get all kinds of ridiculously favorable provisions enacted. Just trash our regulations against toxic chemicals, our rights to our days in court, even basic rights to use our property as we see fit, hand over most of the national treasury to these shadowy interests, and when they whistle, come running with the military to beat up whoever they say is being naughty. They may as well be attempting to repeal the entire Bill of Rights and half the US Constitution.
We should impress one thing upon our representatives. NO SECRET DEALS! Ever. Period. Any current deals negotiated in secret are null and void. While we're at that, roast those members of the media who are cooperating with the secrecy, and playing along with the propaganda.