ISDS owns your country

[xoxoxoBruce]

Imagine a private, global super court that empowers corporations to bend countries to their will.

Say a nation tries to prosecute a corrupt CEO or ban dangerous pollution. Imagine that a company could turn to this super court and sue the whole country for daring to interfere with its profits, demanding hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars as retribution.

Imagine that this court is so powerful that nations often must heed its rulings as if they came from their own supreme courts, with no meaningful way to appeal. That it operates unconstrained by precedent or any significant public oversight, often keeping its proceedings and sometimes even its decisions secret. That the people who decide its cases are largely elite Western corporate attorneys who have a vested interest in expanding the court’s authority because they profit from it directly, arguing cases one day and then sitting in judgment another. That some of them half-jokingly refer to themselves as “The Club” or “The Mafia.”

And imagine that the penalties this court has imposed have been so crushing — and its decisions so unpredictable — that some nations dare not risk a trial, responding to the mere threat of a lawsuit by offering vast concessions, such as rolling back their own laws or even wiping away the punishments of convicted criminals.

Read it and weep.

[elSicomoro]

Well, we've always known that money talks...

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Read it and weep.

I'm depressed and pissed off enough today. Pass.

[glatt]

Wait a minute. Is there a way I can use this to my advantage? Can I threaten to sue, let's say France, and get them to pay me 10 million Euros to go away?

[Pamela]

I had the idea first! I'm suing

[regular.joe]

Holy one sided and overblown story Batman. You know why half the paragraphs start with the word imagine? Because you really have to just imagine all that stuff. Imagine I own a company that does business in a country that is taken over in a coup and all of the commerce is nationalized and my business is lost. Actually, we don't have to imagine too hard, this has actually happened. I can't sue inside country, clearly. It might be nice to have a court to appeal to to try to recoup my losses.

[xoxoxoBruce]

The problem is it's not a court, it's a secret enclave. And that was only part 1 of the article.

[regular.joe]

If it is written into treaties, how is it a secret?

[xoxoxoBruce]

That it operates unconstrained by precedent or any significant public oversight, often keeping its proceedings and sometimes even its decisions secret.

[Griff]

Won't someone think of the corporations?

[elSicomoro]

Good thing I have an LLC!

[Pamela]

First, we kill all the lawyers.....

[tw]

Originally Posted by Pamela

First, we kill all the lawyers.....

First in line is Ted Cruz? Because even Republican Senators do not like him.

[classicman]

Next up Hillary cuz even though most D's are voting for her, they don't like her either.