Slashdot Mirror
CETA Signed Off As Wallonia Folds Under Pressure (freezenet.ca)
Dangerous_Minds writes: The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) has been signed off. The government of Wallonia appeared to be holding off on the agreement, but has since folded under the pressure. Two days after Wallonia agreed to the trade deal, countries signed off on the agreement. The agreement contains provisions surrounding a three strikes law, a global DMCA, site blocking, and the hugely controversial ISDS provisions to name a few. The deal still needs to be ratified for these laws to take effect.
ISDS = workers rights gone as big corps can say they are bad for profits.
Wallonia is a real place, it's a region of Belgium, which is a country in Europe.
https://stop-ttip.org/what-is-...
Investors will be able to sue states.
The so-called Investor-State-Dispute-Settlement (ISDS) – even in it’s new disguise as the EU’s “Investment Court System” (ICS) model – will grant foreign investors (i.e. Canadian and US companies) the right to sue European states if they believe that laws or measures of the EU or any member state have damaged their investments and reduced their expected profit. This will also affect laws and measures enacted in the interest of the common good, such as environmental and consumer protection.
Read up on Investor State Tribunals in CETA here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Basically it allows corporations to sue states in arbitrary "tribunals" if a state violates its Non Discriminatory Treatment obligations (CETA, section 3, p 156 f) or because of a violation of the guaranteed investment protection.
So corporations can claim that environmental protection laws are arbitrary and give unfair advantages to domestic companies that comply with those laws, while penalizing foreign companies that do not comply.
The fear is that corporations will claim, "You are only enacting those environmental, worker protection, and social justice laws to penalize us, it's just code for 'protect local business.'" This is a realistic fear because it has happened before.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
And it's a hyped up fear. This sort of tribunal exists in NAFTA and has never lead to this result. Not only that but the agreement that got Belgium onboard heavily modifies this tribunal, and corporate interests will no longer be able to name anyone to these tribunals. The tribunals will be picked from a fixed body of experts chosen by the EU and Canada and called in deal with disputes on a rotating basis.
Unless you think nations who are signatories to treaties can just wantonly abrogate the obligations they agreed to and the affected party should have no right to seek a hearing. If that's the case, then just come out and say you reject any agreements between nation states of any kind, and believe treaties, big or small, are absolute wrongs.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
CETA includes exactly the same ISDS, as the summary states. Now before you judge others' reading skills...
Yes it does and it has been used a dozen times against the Canadian government. Search for "nafta mmt lawsuit". Canada had to pay a private US corporation $12 million dollars (the company had sued for a quarter billion) because we'd banned MMT, an additive to gasoline that is a suspected carcinogen. The Canadian government didn't only loose, but was forced to re-legalize MMT.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/01/14/canada-sued-investor-state-dispute-ccpa_n_6471460.html
It's not a separate country. It's a region of Belgium and Belgium has a very complicated federal system. In many cases, Belgium can only sign contracts, if all regions agree to said contract.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)