Corporate democracy?

Memnoch

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/04/british-government-leading-gunpowder-plot-democracy-eu-us-trade

I just want to highlight a couple of things from the article.

The central problem is what the negotiators call investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). The treaty would allow corporations to sue governments before an arbitration panel composed of corporate lawyers, at which other people have no representation, and which is not subject to judicial review.

Already, thanks to the insertion of ISDS into much smaller trade treaties, big business is engaged in an orgy of litigation, whose purpose is to strike down any law that might impinge on its anticipated future profits. The tobacco firm Philip Morris is suing governments in Uruguay and Australia for trying to discourage people from smoking. The oil firm Occidental was awarded $2.3bn in compensation from Ecuador, which terminated the company’s drilling concession in the Amazon after finding that Occidental had broken Ecuadorean law. The Swedish company Vattenfall is suing the German government for shutting down nuclear power. An Australian firm is suing El Salvador’s government for $300m for refusing permission for a goldmine over concerns it would poison the drinking water.

I can't believe how this is something under serious consideration and being lobbied for by various European governments. I find it so incredulous that I can't really think of anything else to say beyond the fact that I'm completely outraged.

I guess we can only spread the word.

Frank Lee Midere

I see Richard Bruton was a signature on the letter supporting the agreement. I am sure that is what we all voted him in for.

Black Swan

The East India Company had been a major "corporate" force of worldwide political influence for profits in another age. Today's multinational corporations are too, just not as outspoken and more subtle. Across the pond corporations are treated as artificial persons (citizens) that can influence elections, often donating to both sides in their bipartisan system to hedge their bets. If you go against their corporate interests, they use their millions to fund your opposition in the next election. And when you win using their campaign donations, they come to collect in behalf of their corporate interests in terms of favourable legislation. Nothing is for free in the real world; there's always a price to pay.

Shifting from the courts to arbitration/mediation agreements is not new either. Corporations have used arbitration/mediation agreements to distance themselves from citizen juries to reduce the risk of losing cases, or to reduce the amounts lost via mediation compromise orchestrated between paid for-profit professionals, as well as to reduce the chance of huge punitive damages awarded by citizen juries. Read the fine print in your software user agreements before checking the agree [x] box and you might discover it there too. These are standard business practices to reduce business risk and thereby increase profits that might otherwise be lost to litigation.

The only surprise I find regarding the TTIP issue is that people are surprised in the first place, and getting worked up about these agreements (all of a sudden). Variations of such practices have been going on for ages to increase profits for large business interests both domestically and internationally. The East India Company used to go to war to expand their resources and protect their profits, and across the pond former 5-star general and president Dwight Eisenhower warned his citizens about such problematic corporate profit seeking interests as exemplified by their Military Industrial Complex. So what's new, other than the recent popular surprise triggered by The Guardian pointing at how for-profit seeking corporations may compromise their version of democracy?

Frank Lee Midere

TTIP is new, Black Swan. And clearly there would be no need for it if it already existed. I don't doubt corporate control - why did Bruton sign?

Black Swan

Frank Lee Midere wrote: »

TTIP is new, Black Swan.

Specifically yes, in general no per the spirit and intent of my above post.

PopePalpatine

Why shouldn't we be worried? The TTIP could have disastrous effects to anyone who doesn't have at least tens of millions of Euro to their name.

Memnoch

Black Swan wrote: »

Specifically yes, in general no per the spirit and intent of my above post.

The idea of it may not be new. But the implementation of it, in this context is a powerful and irreversible erosion of our democracy and sovreignity. So while it's existence may not be a surprise, it's still important to spread the word and raise opposition.

This is far more likely to impact and exploit us then the water charges everyone is up in arms about.

Manach

While by nature I'm rather pro-corporate, there are limits when negations are conducted under a veil of secrecy. In terms of copyright "reform", based on some earlier leaked documents the TTIP proposals are retrograde in they would seek diminish user-rights in how such work available for consumption. As well, as per a recent Slashdot article url]http://yro.slashdot.org/story/14/11/02/1355222/is-public-debate-of-trade-agreements-against-the-public-interest[/url, having sub rosa talks in this regard is a poor way for people to be informed on how decisions are made.
Given how ACTA was protested, it seems that crafting a fait accompli by presenting a done deal as a way to head off a similar fate.

PopePalpatine

Black Swan wrote: »

The only surprise I find regarding the TTIP issue is that people are surprised in the first place, and getting worked up about these agreements (all of a sudden). Variations of such practices have been going on for ages to increase profits for large business interests both domestically and internationally. The East India Company used to go to war to expand their resources and protect their profits, and across the pond former 5-star general and president Dwight Eisenhower warned his citizens about such problematic corporate profit seeking interests as exemplified by their Military Industrial Complex. So what's new, other than the recent popular surprise triggered by The Guardian pointing at how for-profit seeking corporations may compromise their version of democracy?

I guess they're getting worked up because they've been surprised. Do you think it's right that these far-reaching agreements are implemented without the public being informed and without any public discussion?

Godge

Would this proposal contravene Article 34 of our Constitution and therefore require a referendum?

Black Swan

Memnoch wrote: »

The idea of it may not be new. But the implementation of it, in this context is a powerful and irreversible erosion of our democracy and sovreignity. So while it's existence may not be a surprise, it's still important to spread the word and raise opposition.

Francis Bacon suggested that knowledge was power, unfortunately fun common knowledge (e.g., knowing your sports team and its players, etc.) is more attractive, understandable, and widespread than knowledge and understanding of those complex and often confounding issues that affect the exceedingly abstract notion of democracy.

Memnoch wrote: »

This is far more likely to impact and exploit us then the water charges everyone is up in arms about.

The issues that pertain to water charges are relatively simple when compared to complex corporate interests associated with TTIP and government.

PopePalpatine wrote: »

I guess they're getting worked up because they've been surprised. Do you think it's right that these far-reaching agreements are implemented without the public being informed and without any public discussion?

The Guardian surprised them with their recent coverage of TTIP. People got worked up about it, and TTIP may be affected. Then again, in the Age of the Supercookie, I do not anticipate any lasting impacts on corporate special interests behavior. When the news media has saturated their audience with the TTIP message, and it gets boring, they will move on to other non-related issues to sell papers and advertising. After this happens, those corporate interests will not go away, rather a different approach may be taken to accomplish the same thing, time and time again. As the Pirates of the Caribbean character Lord Cutler Beckett stated "it's just good business."

Scofflaw

PopePalpatine wrote: »

I guess they're getting worked up because they've been surprised. Do you think it's right that these far-reaching agreements are implemented without the public being informed and without any public discussion?

To be fair, the Commission put a hold on negotiations in January this year in order to start a public consultation on ISDS, to which they got 150,000 replies - and the Irish Commission Representation has a TTIP consultation on its front page: http://www.euireland.ie

So the Commission aren't exactly hiding TTIP's light under a bushel. It's more that the press haven't really bothered with it (meh, trade agreement, boooring) up to now. Now it's got a bit of popular traction (following an anti-TTIP day in October) it's worth covering, but the press get to say "oh, they've been keeping this one secret". New Scientist, which also covered it recently, at least avoided that angle to some extent.

(Pardon my cynicism about the virtues of the press).

As to the secrecy surrounding the actual negotiations - yes, it's always disturbing to have things negotiated behind closed doors, but unfortunately there are extremely strong practical reasons for doing so. Think back to the NSA/PRISM revelations, one part of which was that the US spied on other nations' negotiators at the Copenhagen Climate Conference (and will probably do so again at Lima) in order to learn the details of their negotiating positions.

The US then knew the minimum the other negotiating countries would accept, and simply held out until that's what they had to accept, knowing it was safe to do so.

So while we, as European citizens, are right in principle to demand to know in advance what minimum the EU will accept, in practice us knowing it means the US knows it, and it becomes automatically the minimum we can actually get.

And while the process may be secretive, the outcome must be voted on by the European Parliament, EU Council, and all the national parliaments before it can come into effect. So it's not the case that the secrecy surrounding the negotiations themselves leads to sign-off - TTIP's final form must be publicly visible, at least at the parliamentary level.

Having said all that, I personally don't see the point. I doubt it will be either the danger some people think it will be, or the benefit others claim it will be. I don't like ISDS, but it's already a standard mechanism in bilateral trade arrangements - yes, there will be some egregious examples people can point to, but every court produces such examples, and picking the bad without any indication of whether they're the usual outcome is simply cherry-picking.

The point that TTIP is mostly concerned with "non-tariff barriers" is the bit which produces the claims of great benefit, and the alarm at a "race to the bottom" in regulatory standards. But TTIP isn't retrospective, so it doesn't affect existing legislation, only future legislation - and why would two markets with regulatory cooperation in mind engage in a race to the bottom? Those races result from competition to attract FDI, not cooperation - EU regulations are similarly produced through cooperation between previously competing countries, and it's kind of hard to claim that the outcome there has been a regulatory race to the bottom.

And regulatory cooperation isn't a carte blanche to bypass everything people care about, either - the legislative process of producing regulations is already fixed (at the EU level, by treaty), so even if the EU seeks harmonisation with the US, it still has to produce the resulting regulations by the existing process of Commission initiative and Parliament and Council amendment/approval. So TTIP isn't going to produce the sweeping away of all environmental and health regulations opponents claim for it.

Which also tells you that TTIP probably won't produce the huge gains from regulatory harmonisation that proponents claim for it, either, because the eurocentric thinking that goes into producing EU regulation isn't changing, nor is the US-centric thinking that goes into producing US regulation. TTIP might mandate that the two parties consider harmony, but it cannot mandate it, because it does not change the way regulation is created in either jurisdiction. Another corollary of that is that there's nothing stopping such cooperation for harmonisation from taking place without TTIP.

Finally, of course, as a Green, I have to ask whether any of this is really of value overall. This is two of the wealthiest markets in the world aiming for something that makes them a little bit wealthier, on top of all the other things that are already doing so, on a finite planet which is already creaking under the numbers and wealth of global civilisation. Even if it's all it's cracked up to be, do we really need it?

And having said that, one coda, which is that TTIP looks to me very like an attempt to make sure the world's current big two markets don't get overtaken as the standard-setter by China and India. Oddly enough, I'd accept that as a good raison d'etre for TTIP in preference to the vaunted claims of economic benefit.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Macha

I know the Commission has made steps to be more transparent but that's after a lot of complaints. Moreover, the European Ombudsman launched a public consultation during the summer over transparency and public participation in the TTIP negotiations.

I also wouldn't be so sure it doesn't have an impact on co-decision, if only through a sort of 'chilling effect' on strong environmental and health legislation. It's not about changes in the procedure of co-decision but rather increasing the leverage of companies in their lobbying efforts.

Scofflaw

Macha wrote: »

I know the Commission has made steps to be more transparent but that's after a lot of complaints. Moreover, the European Ombudsman launched a public consultation during the summer over transparency and public participation in the TTIP negotiations.

That's true, but there's still a practical limit to transparency in this case.

Macha wrote: »

I also wouldn't be so sure it doesn't have an impact on co-decision, if only through a sort of 'chilling effect' on strong environmental and health legislation. It's not about changes in the procedure of co-decision but rather increasing the leverage of companies in their lobbying efforts.

There I would agree with you, and particularly so for transnationals. That the scare stories of how a race to the bottom will come about doesn't mean there will be no impact at all, and I can't see how the impact could realistically be other than in a pro-business direction - after all, that's the point.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Macha

Scofflaw wrote: »

That's true, but there's still a practical limit to transparency in this case.

Indeed. My guess is this will become another ACTA.

Scofflaw

Macha wrote: »

Indeed. My guess is this will become another ACTA.

Probably not for the right reasons, but there we go.

cordially,
Scofflaw