FOIA reveals government’s assessment of TTIP's corporate courts – “lots of risks and no benefit” - TruePublica
FOIA reveals government’s assessment of TTIP’s corporate courts – “lots of risks and no benefit”
As the thirteenth round of negotiations of the free trade
deal between the EU and the USA start in New York, a Freedom of
Information Access (FOIA) request released today by campaign group
Global Justice Now reveals that the only assessment that the government
has carried out on the risk of introducing secret corporate courts under
TTIP shows lots of risks and almost no benefit.
The corporate court system, or ‘investor protection’, has proven to be the most controversial aspect of TTIP. There’s been extensive documentation as
to how similar investor protection provision in other trade deals has
incurred multi-billion lawsuits for governments around the world.
In February a FOIA request was made of the Department for Business
Industry and Skills (BIS) asking them what risk assessments had been
carried out of the UK government facing such lawsuits if TTIP were to
come into effect.
There is little reason to think that an EU-US investment chapter will provide the UK with significant economic benefits.
There is little reason to think that an EU-US investment chapter will provide the UK with significant political benefits.
There is some reason to expect an EU-US investment chapter will
impose meaningful economic costs on the UK. Based on Canada’s experience
under NAFTA, we would expect an EU-US investment chapter to be
regularly invoked by US investors against the UK for governmental
actions that would normally not be challengeable under UK law.
[The Investment Chapter of TTIP is the part of the trade deal that covers investor protection.]
The response from BIS also revealed that no risk assessment had been
carried out for the inclusion of investor protection in CETA – the free
trade deal between Canada and EU that is even further down the process
of approval than TTIP.
Introducing a system of secret corporate courts under
TTIP would be a fundamental shift in trade and legal policies, so it’s
staggering that the government is pushing us into it with almost no
assessment of what the risks are for our policy makers or the tax payer.
What’s even worse is that the one assessment that the government has
commissioned shows that there are lots of risks and no benefit. Yet
again this toxic trade deal is exposed as being full of harmful
consequences for ordinary people, and new powers and privileges for
corporate elites.
Court cases brought against governments under investor protection in other trade deals include:
Tobacco giant Philip Morris has sued Australia for introducing plain packaging on cigarettes.
Philip Morris also sued Uruguay for printing a health warning on cigarette packets.
Waste and energy company Veolia sued Egypt for introducing a minimum wage
Argentina was sued for freezing energy prices to protect consumers following the country’s financial collapse.
See FOIA request HERE
See Business Innovation & Skills Response HERE
