[TechDirt] How Corporate Sovereignty Threatens Democracy

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As people have begun to learn about corporate sovereignty through plans to include it in TAFTA/TTIP, the European Commission has been trying to scotch the idea that it might allow corporations to dictate policies to nations. Here, for example, is a comment in the Commission’s main TTIP FAQ, which tries to answer the question « Why is the EU including Investor to State Dispute Settlement in the TTIP? » : « Including measures to protect investors does not prevent governments from passing laws, nor does it lead to laws being repealed. At most, it can lead to compensation being paid. » […]

Does GBU deserve to be awarded 2% of a country’s GDP, paid for by the citizens of a land struggling to raise its living standards? That hardly seems fair. And yet it’s precisely what ISDS could allow, because the arbitration panel that decides such corporate sovereignty cases is unconstrained in what it can award, and not at all concerned with what the knock-on effects might be.

But the politicians making up the European Commission should be, since they are supposed to represent the 500 million European citizens that pay their salaries. The fact that they are pushing as hard as they can for ISDS in TAFTA/TTIP shows which side they are really on, and that they are quite happy to put corporations before nations, and profits before people.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140416/09560626932/how-corporate-sovereignty-threatens-democracy.shtml