The Indy on the Madness that is TTIP

Not that it seems any amount of warning will interest or engage our citizenry over the outrageous extra-judicial anti-democractic monstrosities that are TTIP & TPP, and their related cohorts.  But, one can but try, futile as it may be.

Corporate vampires have tried to suck $4 billion out of Romania, and with TTIP the UK could be next

TTIP's opponents may be accused of speculation, but the impact of similar trade deals abroad is terrifyingly real

When it dared to halt the production of a gold mine, the government of Romania found itself facing a massive lawsuit from a corporate mining giant in a secret "court". There's nothing about the case that makes any sense – the corporation has said it may seek up to $4 billion in "compensation", which is half of Romania’s annual public healthcare budget.

How awful for Romania to be subject to such a corporate assault, you may think. However, under a controversial trade deal between the UK and America known as TTIP, such cases could become common in Britain. So why is our government one of the biggest cheerleaders of these "corporate courts"?*

What's happening in Romania is a terrifying sign of what could happen if TTIP is passed. The corporate vampires are out for blood, and won't rest until they've drained a sovereign state of its money, and destroyed large parts of its land. The mining giant Gabriel Resources originally wanted to develop an enormous gold mine that would involve flattening four mountain tops. There were fears that this would would leave behind a behind a toxic waste lake containing dammed water and cyanide. But in 2014 a critical environmental document that was required for the project to go-ahead was annulled in a Romanian court. In the face of mass protests inside and outside the country, Romania’s parliament decided not to push through a law that would have allowed the project to continue.

Gabriel Resources has recently admitted that they've lost hope of ever building their mine. But at the same time they submitted a request for arbitration at the World Bank, demanding compensation for all the gold and silver that they were unable to extract. The company is using a Jersey subsidiary to bring the case, so it can make use of a UK-Romania investment deal, even though it's based in Canada. The company claims they have spent nearly $500 million on the project, yet in an interview the company’s CEO claimed he was seeking up to $4 billion in "compensation".

This is exactly the kind of case which that TTIP would promote throughout Europe. Through something called the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism, foreign corporations get access to a secret arbitration system to sue governments for "damaging" their profits. These cases are taking place with an alarming frequency using a variety of existing trade deals, but TTIP would massively expand the possibility of this taking place. It would do this by allowing all US corporations to sue EU member states and all EU corporations to sue the US government.

...

Yet despite all of this, the British government is fully signed up to the corporate courts. Last year it signed a letter that made clear that the secret court system shouldn’t be removed from the trade deal under any circumstances.

Sovereignty, who needs it ?  Says a 'Conservative' government that rants and raves about the European Union, and, to a lesser degree, the UN, but is more than happy to put unaccountable multi-national corporations above the law or oversight of any government, itself very much included.  Are the UN-'New World Order' nuts paying attention ?


* As with the question of why Osborne is selling off the taxpayers' stake in RBS at a loss, the answer is simple.  Whether you are naïve enough to think otherwise, or even stupid enough to vote for the bastards (not that the same couldn't be said about many Labour-supporters), the fact is, they don't work for you.  If they ever did, they certainly haven't for the last few decades.  And the longer it takes for the general public to wake up to that fact, the less likely it is that our circumstances will ever change.

TISA !

Meant to link to this yesterday.


Another secretive trade-deal to go with TTIP & TPP.  Yay !

An enormous corporate-friendly treaty that many people haven’t heard of was thrust into the public limelight Wednesday when famed publisher of government and corporate secrets, WikiLeaks, released 17 documents from closed-door negotiations between countries that together comprise two-thirds of the word’s economy.

Analysts warn that preliminary review shows that the pact, known as the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), is aimed at further privatizing and deregulating vital services, from transportation to healthcare, with a potentially devastating impact for people of the countries involved in the deal, and the world more broadly.

...

Under secret negotiation by 50 countries for roughly two years, the pact includes the United States, European Union, and 23 other countries—including Israel, Turkey, and Colombia. Notably, the BRICS countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—are excluded from the talks.

...

Bypassing democratic regulations: “Preliminary analysis notes that the goal of domestic regulation texts is to remove domestic policies, laws and regulations that make it harder for transnational corporations to sell their services in other countries (actually or virtually), to dominate their local suppliers, and to maximize their profits and withdraw their investment, services and profits at will,” writes OWINFS. “Since this requires restricting the right of governments to regulate in the public interest, the corporate lobby is using TISA to bypass elected officials in order to apply a set of across-the-board rules that would never be approved on their own by democratic governments.”

Such fun, fun, fun to live in the twenty-first century.  We will get those (more importantly driverless) flying cars soon enough, and maybe one-day the jetpacks.  But any regard for the economic wellbeing or basic rights of actual humans went out the window decades ago.

Oh well.  Back to Candy Crush or whatever the game du jour may be.

TPP & TTIP

And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters:

With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.

Revelation 17:1-2

TPP & TTIP (the Trans-Pacific Partnership & the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) don't seem to get much coverage in the media, despite their likely impact on so many countries, likely because a) the deals are complicated, and b) the deals are being worked in secret behind closed doors.  These are just 'trade deals' remember, not exactly a nuclear deal with Iran; Totally innocent stuff, and the reason the US, UK, and other governments don't want you to know about what's being discussed, is simply that it's so boring.  They'll tell you all about it eventually, such as...four years after the deals are already done and dusted.

In the meantime, you're just gonna have to trust them that the deals are in your best interest and will result in more jobs, more prosperity, and rising wages, just like...say NAFTA...or say...the MFN deal Clinton pushed with China.  Those worked out really well, didn't they ?  And the PRC is going to turn into a flourishing democracy with respect for the human rights and civil liberties of all its citizens any day now, right Bill ?

Basically, like all 'free trade' deals, the idea is to maximise corporate profits at the expense of labour costs (i.e. your paycheck), civil liberties, national sovereignty, safety, and the environment; to drag every nation slowly down to the lowest-common denominator.  To drag the EU standards down to those of the US, down to those of South America, down to those of east Asia, down ultimately one would imagine to those of Somalia.  And if any national government gets in the way of corporate profits by passing pesky laws to, say protect the safety & wellbeing of its citizens, well fuck 'em. !  They can just be sued, in trans-national arbitration tribunals, run by said corporations, and outside of national law.  Bye-bye national sovereignty.  And you think the EU is the threat, Ukippers ?


Here's a nice summary of the deals for the uninitiated (yes with Russell Brand, sorry):

Sounds good, huh ?

Remember this bit from Last Week Tonight ?  (Might want to skip to 8'05).  Think Philip Morris is the only corporation that does this stuff ?  Think making this shit even easier is a good idea ?

What to do, other than try to find some non-corporatist non-fascist non-cocksucker politicians to vote for ?  Well the first video has some suggestions towards the end.  I don't hold out much hope myself, but you never know.

For the American Sparkle-pony crowd, here's a bonus video, with not-going-to-be-the-Democratic-nominee-for-president-any-time-soon Elizabeth Warren on TPP and the ISDS tribunals back in February.

And if you really want lots more details on TPP, check out Gaius Publius' writings on the subject.  Don't know if Gaius has a dedicated page, but Hullabaloo & Americablog are probably good starting points.