The widespread suspicion that this game is essentially rigged in favor of powerful private interests is not entirely unfounded. Here is Robert Bisso, the director of Social Watch, an international network of citizens’ organizations, in a speech to the U.N. in May:… over two thousand bilateral and regional trade and investment agreements signed in the last few decades have created new rights for transnational corporations, including rights that humans don’t have: corporations have acquired the right to settle anywhere they want and bring with them any personnel they decide they need, they are allowed to repatriate profits without restrictions and even to litigate against governments in demand of profits lost because of democratically decided policies, not through local courts but via international arbitration panels shaped to defend business interests and where human rights do not necessarily prevail. ICSID, the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes, hosted by the World Bank, is an untransparent tribunal that displaces national judiciary and in a way creates its own law by way of ignoring human rights standards and environmental norms, even when they have been ratified as international treaties. This trend should be cause for serious concern.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 10:24:22 +0000
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