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Comments on the European Commission's approach to investor-state arbitration
Gus Van Harten is an associate professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University.
Comments on the European Commission's approach to investor-state arbitration in TTIP and CETA by Gus Van Harten, July 3, 2014, 55pp
http://eu-secretdeals.info/upload/2014/07/Van-Harten_Comments-id2466688.pdf
I respond to the European Commission’s invitation for comment on its approach to investment protection and investor-state arbitration in the proposed EU-United States Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
I am a Canadian academic specializing in international
investment law and am grateful for the opportunity to comment. Further information on the consultation is available here: http://trade.ec.europa.eu/consultations/index.cfm?consul_id=179.
The consultation does not ask the essential question: why is investor-state arbitration necessary in TTIP or CETA? To answer this question rigorously would require a careful framing of the question and comprehensive assessment of economic, political, and legal aspects of the use and
impact of investor-state arbitration. For example, the consultation would need to examine:
• the costs and benefits of investor-state arbitration in broad terms;
• the implications of investor-state arbitration for principles such as democratic choice, regulatory flexibility, and market efficiency;
• the compatibility of investor-state arbitration with values of judicial decision-making including, for example, values of judicial independence, openness, and procedural fairness; and
• the relative utility and role of alternative means – such as domestic and European courts, state-to-state adjudication, and market mechanisms including investment contracts and risk insurance – to protect foreign investors; and
The consultation is not framed to address any of these issues. As a result, it is not designed to obtain a wide range of available evidence and information that would cast doubt on or outright contradict common claims of proponents of investor-state arbitration...
more at http://www.alternativetrademandate.org, http://www.freembtranslations.net and John Hilary's 58-page booklet "TTIP: Charter for Deregulation, Attack on Jobs and Destruction of Democracy, revised February 2015
http://www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/sonst_publikationen/TTIP_HILARY_UPDATE_EN_2015.pdf
http://eu-secretdeals.info/upload/2014/07/Van-Harten_Comments-id2466688.pdf
I respond to the European Commission’s invitation for comment on its approach to investment protection and investor-state arbitration in the proposed EU-United States Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
I am a Canadian academic specializing in international
investment law and am grateful for the opportunity to comment. Further information on the consultation is available here: http://trade.ec.europa.eu/consultations/index.cfm?consul_id=179.
The consultation does not ask the essential question: why is investor-state arbitration necessary in TTIP or CETA? To answer this question rigorously would require a careful framing of the question and comprehensive assessment of economic, political, and legal aspects of the use and
impact of investor-state arbitration. For example, the consultation would need to examine:
• the costs and benefits of investor-state arbitration in broad terms;
• the implications of investor-state arbitration for principles such as democratic choice, regulatory flexibility, and market efficiency;
• the compatibility of investor-state arbitration with values of judicial decision-making including, for example, values of judicial independence, openness, and procedural fairness; and
• the relative utility and role of alternative means – such as domestic and European courts, state-to-state adjudication, and market mechanisms including investment contracts and risk insurance – to protect foreign investors; and
The consultation is not framed to address any of these issues. As a result, it is not designed to obtain a wide range of available evidence and information that would cast doubt on or outright contradict common claims of proponents of investor-state arbitration...
more at http://www.alternativetrademandate.org, http://www.freembtranslations.net and John Hilary's 58-page booklet "TTIP: Charter for Deregulation, Attack on Jobs and Destruction of Democracy, revised February 2015
http://www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/sonst_publikationen/TTIP_HILARY_UPDATE_EN_2015.pdf
For more information:
http://www.alternativetrademandate.org
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TTIP
In June 2013, US President Obama and European Commission President Barroso officially launched negotiations on a Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), or a Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA) as many are calling it. Both names overstate the importance of trade, which is only a tiny part of the negotiations. The main objective of the TTIP or TAFTA is to harmonize to the greatest extent possible transatlantic rules, regulations and standards on food and consumer product safety, environmental protection, biotechnology and toxic chemicals management, financial services and banking, domestic regulation of services, pharmaceutical patent terms, and many more areas of public policy. EU and US governments will hold onto a “right to regulate” but it will be severely constrained, subsumed under the overall priority of reducing barriers to investment opportunities for multinational corporations.
The TTIP/TAFTA will also contain very powerful investment protection rules and an investor-to-state dispute settlement process, which is the subject of the Commission’s three-month consultation between March and June. Both European and US officials, backed by powerful business lobbies, will be pressing for maximum protection for corporations against legislative or regulatory interference into their “rights” to profit from transatlantic trade and investment.
LEAKED TEXTS