Process
Status Items Output None Questions None Claims None Highlights Done See section below
Document Notes
Just another way that the world works in favor of corporations and their interests, first and foremost.
Highlights
id654118857
international corporations have used secretive hearings to take government money and avoid environmental regulation. Known as investor-state dispute settlements, or ISDS, this regime of supra-national tribunals is eroding climate protections and increasing fossil-fuel companies’ profits.
id654118848
ISDS proceedings were designed to encourage corporations to do business in foreign countries by making it easier to settle disputes with those countries’ governments. Starting in the 1990s, ISDS clauses became a regular part of international free trade agreements. If a corporation can hold a country’s government accountable for policies that reduce their profits, the logic goes, the company will be more likely to do business there. But climate, labor, and business transparency advocates say that corporations have abused the process, which is shrouded in secrecy. Cases are heard not by a court of law or some other public body, but by a tribunal of three arbitrators picked from a list of private-sector lawyers—one chosen by the business bringing the complaint, one by the government, and a third mutual choice. It’s also a one-way mechanism, with nations being unable to bring countersuits or appeal their cases. Many of the cases remain completely private, so the public is often unaware that an arbitration ever took place. Cases can be so secret, in fact, that a body of the United Nations that tracks ISDS arbitration notes that the number of disputes filed in any year is “likely to be higher” than the numbers it has on file. If a company wins a settlement against a nation, it’s taxpayer money that gets paid out—with no cap on the amount—and settlements can sometimes demand nations pay “expected future profits” to companies. “The whole system is set up so that it’s corporations who sue governments,”