{"id":8074,"date":"2015-05-13T06:17:48","date_gmt":"2015-05-13T11:17:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=8074"},"modified":"2015-05-13T06:17:48","modified_gmt":"2015-05-13T11:17:48","slug":"as-the-senate-prepares-to-vote-on-fast-track-heres-a-quick-primer-on-the-dangers-of-the-tpp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=8074","title":{"rendered":"As the Senate Prepares to Vote on \u201cFast Track,\u201d Here\u2019s a Quick Primer on the Dangers of the TPP"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the Senate Prepares to Vote on \u201cFast Track,\u201d Here\u2019s a Quick Primer on the Dangers of the TPP<\/a><\/h3>\n

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?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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 \u201cInvestor-State Dispute Settlement,\u201d or ISDS. The name may sound mild, but don\u2019t be fooled. Agreeing to ISDS in this enormous new treaty would tilt the playing field in the United States further in favor of big multinational corporations. Worse, it would undermine U.S. sovereignty.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

ISDS would allow foreign companies to challenge U.S. laws \u2013 and potentially to pick up huge payouts from taxpayers \u2013 without ever stepping foot in a U.S. court. Here\u2019s 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\u2019t be challenged in U.S. courts, and the arbitration panel could require American taxpayers to cough up millions \u2013 and even billions \u2013 of dollars in damages.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

If that seems shocking, buckle your seat belt. ISDS could lead to gigantic fines, but it wouldn\u2019t 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\u2019re a lawyer looking to maintain or attract high-paying corporate clients, how likely are you to rule against those corporations when it\u2019s your turn in the judge\u2019s seat?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2013 From Sen. Elizabeth Warren\u2019s Washington Post Op-Ed:\u00a0The Trans-Pacific Partnership Clause Everyone Should Oppose<\/a><\/p>\n

Trying to learn about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP,\u00a0is like trying to walk through a minefield. The only information we really have is courtesy of leaks, and those snippets are definitely not encouraging.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the Senate Prepares to Vote on \u201cFast Track,\u201d Here\u2019s a Quick Primer on the Dangers of the TPP 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? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[171,337,5387,5388,1510,804,805,5199,808],"class_list":["post-8074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-geopolitics","tag-corporations","tag-free-trade","tag-investor-state-dispute-settlement","tag-isds","tag-sovereignty","tag-tpp","tag-trade","tag-trade-treaty","tag-trans-pacific-partnership"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8074"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8075,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8074\/revisions\/8075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}