Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) Debate in Dublin – Weds 5 Nov

by T Sun Nov 16, 2014 01:28

A presentation by Dr Paul O'Connell on the the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

Video produced by Connolly Media Group

https://www.facebook.com/ConnollyMediaGroup
http://vimeo.com/connollymediagroup

Video on Vimeo at: http://vimeo.com/108948150

Caption: Video Id: 108948150 Type: Vimeo
A presentation by Dr Paul O

by T Wed Nov 05, 2014 17:19

Even financial types are recognizing what TTIP will do. There is a good article on it at WolfStreet.com

In it the author says:

In Europe, opposition to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Treaty is rising. The primary cause of concern, both among the general public and certain national governments, is the proposed inclusion of the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS).

As I previously reported, this rather innocuous-sounding provision is what gives the new generation of bilateral and multilateral trade agreements their sharpened claws and canine teeth, by allowing private companies and investors to sue entire nations if they feel that a law lost them money on an investment.....

A New World Disorder

In effect, ISDS is about delineating and setting in stone just where sovereignty lies and who gets to call the shots in the New World Economic Order (or better put, Disorder). If allowed to take universal effect, the system will impose upon our governments a rigid framework of international corporate law designed to exclusively protect the interests of corporations, relieving them of financial risk and social and environmental responsibility.

According to Gus Van Harten of Osgoode Law School, Toronto, the international system of investment arbitration used to decide the outcome of ISDS cases is not only patently unfair, it is woefully unbalanced:

Only the companies [DQ: and at that, only very large companies] can sue governments. It’s a game in which the governments only get to play defense… These processes are not independent; they are not open and they are not procedurally fair. Nor are they balanced or democratically accountable.

Any government that signs ISDS clauses will effectively be abandoning any remaining pretense that they represent or are responsive to the interests and needs of their voters. It would be the ultimate betrayal, a wholesale sellout of the sovereign people to an opaque, unaccountable and deeply compromised system of corporate justice. Just consider the following words from Spanish arbitrator Juan Fernandez Armesto:

It never ceases to amaze me that sovereign states have agreed to investment arbitration at all. Three private individuals are entrusted with the power to review, without any restriction or appeal procedure, all actions of the government, all decisions of the courts, and all laws and regulations emanating from parliament.

And further down we discover a list of EU countries that actually gave a mandate to include this ISDS in the negotiations with Ireland amongst them. It is time this is brought to the public's attention.

Also firmly on board are 14 EU member states, whose trade ministers recently wrote a letter to the new European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker reminding him that ISDS was included in the negotiating mandate that all 27 member states gave to the Commission last year. Those 14 EU member states are: the UK, Spain, Portugal, Lithuania, Ireland, Croatia, Malta, Estonia, Cyprus, Poland, the Czech Republic and, perhaps most surprising of all, the bastions of European social democracy, Sweden, Finland and Denmark.

Well worth reading the rest of the link below...

by Crazy Cat Wed Nov 05, 2014 12:38

Happens to be the latest article from George Monbiot:

http://www.monbiot.com/2014/11/04/a-gunpowder-plot-agai...racy/

by Crazy Cat Tue Nov 04, 2014 11:57

I happened to hear José Bové (French MEP ) talking about various things on the radio.

He said he met the US dealer for TTIP and among other things, he said that the U.S. was very much in favor of adding nano particles to food. (To make yougurt whiter, or chewing gum more colourful) Maybe something to be checked out at the meeting.

The magizine Fakir did a little video on the myth of everybody getting 500 euros with this deal (should be understandable in English):

http://www.fakirpresse.info/-Fakir-TV-24-.html

by fred Sat Nov 01, 2014 04:08

The TTIP has been negotiated in secret by corporations, the US government and the EU leaders. Why? Because they knew the people would not like it one bit. Only because of a leak by wikileaks do we know about what they were up to.

corporations will be able to sue nation states for billions for "potential lost profits" in extra judicial kangaroo courts full of their own "friendly" corporate lawyers, if nation states dare to enact laws to protect their citizens which might impact on corporate profits. For example, if Ireland decided for the good of it's citizens to outlaw GMOs in Ireland to protect it's citizens then Monsanto could sue Ireland for billions in an extra judicial court for "potential lost profits". Or if Ireland banned fracking to protect it's precious aquifers, fracking companies could sue us too for "potential lost profits". Everything is reduced to what's good for commercial profits and any other kind of thinking is penalised

This is absolute madness. I hope this key point is emphasised in the debate rather than brushed under the carpet.

Also food labelling will be undermined and we will be flooded with US substandard food products filled with GMOs and other unhealthy ingredients currently not allowed in the EU.

This is a US corporate self serving "free trade agreement" which will damage other countries just like NAFTA and other free trade agreements engineered by the US have always done to other countries bullied into going along with them. If they go along with this TTIP then this is proof that the folks in the EU have been lobbied, bought and paid for by corporations

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/04/us...cracy
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/02/tr...eu-us