Those who want to “regain control” of their democracies are better off starting with trade and investment agreements—especially during a global pandemic.
Through secret negotiations, they are tools for transferring power and resources from people to multinational corporations-multinational corporations are usually the only people in the room.
During the new EU-US trade negotiations to replace the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a total of 90% of the meetings were held with lobbyists.
This Series of articles Published in collaboration with Dalia Gebrial and Harpreet Kaur Paul and Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung in London.It first appeared in a Global Green New Deal Outlook.
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In addition to lowering tariffs, trade agreements also seek to lower “non-tariff barriers” and achieve “regulatory consistency”, almost always promoting competition at the bottom of workers’ rights, the environment, and food standards.
Public services are also threatened because corporate lobby groups promote the liberalization of all services unless expressly exempted, including future services.
Attacks on public services have a particularly large impact on women because they are the main users and workers in many of these sectors, and they are still the main providers of unpaid labor in the family or community, supplementing public services.
These transactions often include “pause” or “ratcheting” clauses, which means that once an industry is liberalized, it is difficult to go back.
Trade agreements usually include investor state dispute settlement agreements (ISDS), which allow companies to sue the government for lost profits (including potential losses in future profits). The government has no right to sue the company.
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As of the end of 2018, countries around the world have been ordered or agreed to pay $88 billion to investors in disclosed ISDS cases.
Research reports by multinational institutes and CEOs Open democracy It was discovered that law firms were preparing for a “wave” of such lawsuits in the post-pandemic era, as the company sued the government for emergency measures to protect people from the coronavirus.
Measures that may face legal challenges include the state’s acquisition of private hospitals; measures to ensure that drugs, tests, and vaccines are affordable; rent, debt, and utility bill reductions; and measures to provide clean water for hand washing.
To date, no other trade and investment agreement has triggered more investor and state lawsuits than the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT)-the treaty has been described as “the most dangerous investment treaty in the world.”
