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Only slightly more informative: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/03/what-is-ttip-controversial-trade-deal-explained https://www.theguardian.com/bus

Only slightly more informative: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/03/what-is-ttip-controversial-trade-deal-explained https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/03/what-is-tti... From this article: >> One of the most controversial elements of the trade proposal is the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provision. ISDS provisions have been included in many trade deals since the 1980s, to encourage overseas investment in poorer countries. It means private investors can ask a tribunal of international arbitrators to judge if a government has treated them unfairly – and can get compensation. That seems like a really bad thing.

emp_zealoth 10y ago
If the arbitrators had any democratic oversight, it would be less bad - protecting investments in a fair manner is important - yet the tribunal looks like a private get together - where they can shit on an entire country and no one really has any power to stop it.
- noobermin 10y ago
  I wonder about this. I think the need for oversight of multinational corporations sort of requires an international democratic government then. I'm not sure how else you can have democratic oversight outside of a government that assures that it really is democratic and that those they regulate have full force of a law. Appointments from elected heads (ie., UN) only goes so far, because no one really listens to them anyway. What alternatives do we have[0]? [0] Honest question, I would like to see opinions on this, because it seems like the eventual result of globalism really is a world government.
hartator 10y ago
I don't know. Poor countries are often poor because of corruption. International courts might aleviate that and reassure foreign investors. Might introduce corruption at a different level though.
- ThomPete 10y ago
  The primary problem for poor countries is lack of access to western markets. European and American companies can sell their products cheaper in Africa than african farmers can in their own countries. African farmers have very little access to western markets because of toll barriers.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
    Smells like corruption to me. Why allow un-tariffed imports, or not have a trade agreement? Somebody probably has their hand jammed quite tightly in the cookie jar.
    - ThomPete 10y ago
      Corruption in many african countries is a byproduct of the fact that their countries are depending on aid and NGO and the money from these donors can be used for corruption and straight out fraud. It's not the African countries that don't want the trade it's the Europeans and Americans who have an interest in keeping their farmers occupied.
ComodoHacker 10y ago
> That seems like a really bad thing. A bad thing for whom? In developing countries, governments regularly treat investors unfairly because of corruption. Not sure about EU countries.
- Sylos 10y ago
  The fear is that this would enable companies to directly lobby against any law that they don't like. For example, Google or Facebook might go against a privacy law being enacted in a country, because that obviously directly lowers their revenue. Or a manufacturing company might go against worker protection laws, because that means that they have to invest more money. Or a fast-food chain might go against a ban on unhealthy ingredients, just because that would cause their prices to raise. And even if it isn't that simple, and a law really has to be unfair for a specific company, then there are still certain things that need to be done, which are simply unfair. I'm thinking of anti-monopolization measures here. It's certainly not fair to penalize a company, just because it has reached a market share of close to 100%, but you kind of have to do it anyways.
ryanlol 10y ago
There are many places in the world that are practically impossible to operate a business in without violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (obviously assuming you simultaneously operate in the States). In those places, there exists a very clear and desperate need for such arbitration.
- thatfrenchguy 10y ago
  But European countries would very much like to remain in control of their own markets, especially for agriculture. And they are right to do so: no one in the EU wants to eat the stuff that's sold in the US.
  - rurban 10y ago
    A lot of US food is eaten in Europe and nobody has a problem with more or less low quality junk food. Also Europe has already the cheap low quality US movies and TV series. Only Korea is so far immune against that. The problem is only the poisonous US food and pesticides that are forbidden in Europe and the fundamental difference between the European precautionary_principle and the US proactionary principle.
    - m_mueller 10y ago
      ... so how does it help when suddenly the EU has to accept the same pesticide ridden stuff?
    - tdkl 10y ago
      Such food chains are well labeled and known for their origin though.
      - thatfrenchguy 10y ago
        It's pretty hard to label right, especially for things like animal feeding (which is already coming from countries outside the EU).
pavlov 10y ago
My feeling is that the common fears of binding arbitration in international investment disputes are mostly overblown. The existing arbitration institutions were created by international governments and have spent decades building up trust. They don't seem to be in corporations' pockets. For example, the case of Philip Morris vs. Uruguay [1] recently ended in a complete vindication of Uruguay's right to restrict tobacco trademarks, and Philip Morris was ordered to pay Uruguay's legal fees. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Morris_v._Uruguay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Morris_v._Uruguay
- Noseshine 10y ago
  Do you have a link to something that has more data, and not just a single case? I would rather read that... :) . As an aside, what is going in here (HN) today? Is it that it's Sunday, attracting a different crowd than usual? In this thread and in many others I see many perfectly legit comments - that normally remain untouched by downvotes (and I've been here quite often the last two weeks at least) - got downvoted? For example (to give one in this thread) ComodoHacker's comment - light gray just now - "For whom?..." here. I'm not sure what's downvote-worthy pointing out that developing countries usually have severe issues with their legal system. I only ask because it's unusual from my recent experience here at least. If it was common I would not bother to mention it or ask. In another thread somebody asked the same question (and that comment was gray - of course).
  - autokad 10y ago
    on HN, people down-vote opinions that dont conform to their own, and I think thats a really negative aspect of the site. The problem only gets exacerbated by the karma system, so people are afraid to say anything anyone might disagree with, or at least repeat what is popular. I try to avoid looking at the comments section if at all possible, but sometimes I might read them to see if there is more information, as this article didnt go into much detail on the specifics of what the disagreements were over. Overall, I say the HN comments section is down right poison.
    - 10y ago
avar 10y ago
How do you propose to mediate trade disputes between companies and states without something like the ISDS? Imagine this on say the US national level. Apple wants to sell its computers in Alaska, but Alaska has a domestic computing company that gets goverment subsidizes, creating unfair competition. In this case the federal government would step in. There's an analogous issue with international trade agreements. National governments will enter into those agreements, but their courts are always going to be biased towards their local constituents, so in my example Apple couldn't hope for a fair result by suing in Alaskan courts. So there needs to be some pan-national body to settle these sort of disputes without turning every little international company v.s. company or company v.s. government issue into a full-on diplomatic dispute between the respective governments involved. The ISDS in the TTIP seems like such a facility. Why is it unreasonable? I'm not some TTIP proponent or corporate shill, I'm just genuinely curious about this, it just seems to me that a lot of comments on the Internet, including on HN, have knee-jerk negative reactions to every provision in the TTIP without thinking about the real issues those provisions might be solving.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  Apple was a bad example. What you should have gone with was a utility company or a bank. Those are necessary in every society and the "level playing field" of "reformed" economies desired by the West for trade agreements only really creates David-and-Goliath situations where David's slingshot was determined to be unfair domestic subsidization by the World Bank, IMF, etc.
  - avar 10y ago
    Is it really a bad example? The typical scare story about trade agreements seems to be that they're going to result in some big scary multinational shutting off the water supply or something. Is that really the common case or even all that plausible? Or is it just going to be normal businesses like Apple colliding with some country's protectionist policies that are counter to the trade agreement? Besides, if these supposed kangaroo courts are really so unfair the aggrieved countries could just leave the TTIP. That seems to be another detail that's glossed over, that somehow these pan-national arbitration bodies are going to be corrupt, but not quite so corrupt that the trade agreement isn't an overall improvement for the countries involved, because otherwise they'd be pulling out of it, right?

emp_zealoth 10y ago

If the arbitrators had any democratic oversight, it would be less bad - protecting investments in a fair manner is important - yet the tribunal looks like a private get together - where they can shit on an entire country and no one really has any power to stop it.

noobermin 10y ago
I wonder about this. I think the need for oversight of multinational corporations sort of requires an international democratic government then. I'm not sure how else you can have democratic oversight outside of a government that assures that it really is democratic and that those they regulate have full force of a law. Appointments from elected heads (ie., UN) only goes so far, because no one really listens to them anyway. What alternatives do we have[0]? [0] Honest question, I would like to see opinions on this, because it seems like the eventual result of globalism really is a world government.

hartator 10y ago

I don't know. Poor countries are often poor because of corruption. International courts might aleviate that and reassure foreign investors. Might introduce corruption at a different level though.

ThomPete 10y ago
The primary problem for poor countries is lack of access to western markets. European and American companies can sell their products cheaper in Africa than african farmers can in their own countries. African farmers have very little access to western markets because of toll barriers.
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
  Smells like corruption to me. Why allow un-tariffed imports, or not have a trade agreement? Somebody probably has their hand jammed quite tightly in the cookie jar.
  - ThomPete 10y ago
    Corruption in many african countries is a byproduct of the fact that their countries are depending on aid and NGO and the money from these donors can be used for corruption and straight out fraud. It's not the African countries that don't want the trade it's the Europeans and Americans who have an interest in keeping their farmers occupied.

ComodoHacker 10y ago

> That seems like a really bad thing. A bad thing for whom? In developing countries, governments regularly treat investors unfairly because of corruption. Not sure about EU countries.

Sylos 10y ago
The fear is that this would enable companies to directly lobby against any law that they don't like. For example, Google or Facebook might go against a privacy law being enacted in a country, because that obviously directly lowers their revenue. Or a manufacturing company might go against worker protection laws, because that means that they have to invest more money. Or a fast-food chain might go against a ban on unhealthy ingredients, just because that would cause their prices to raise. And even if it isn't that simple, and a law really has to be unfair for a specific company, then there are still certain things that need to be done, which are simply unfair. I'm thinking of anti-monopolization measures here. It's certainly not fair to penalize a company, just because it has reached a market share of close to 100%, but you kind of have to do it anyways.

ryanlol 10y ago

There are many places in the world that are practically impossible to operate a business in without violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (obviously assuming you simultaneously operate in the States). In those places, there exists a very clear and desperate need for such arbitration.

thatfrenchguy 10y ago
But European countries would very much like to remain in control of their own markets, especially for agriculture. And they are right to do so: no one in the EU wants to eat the stuff that's sold in the US.
- rurban 10y ago
  A lot of US food is eaten in Europe and nobody has a problem with more or less low quality junk food. Also Europe has already the cheap low quality US movies and TV series. Only Korea is so far immune against that. The problem is only the poisonous US food and pesticides that are forbidden in Europe and the fundamental difference between the European precautionary_principle and the US proactionary principle.
  - m_mueller 10y ago
    ... so how does it help when suddenly the EU has to accept the same pesticide ridden stuff?
  - tdkl 10y ago
    Such food chains are well labeled and known for their origin though.
    - thatfrenchguy 10y ago
      It's pretty hard to label right, especially for things like animal feeding (which is already coming from countries outside the EU).

pavlov 10y ago

My feeling is that the common fears of binding arbitration in international investment disputes are mostly overblown. The existing arbitration institutions were created by international governments and have spent decades building up trust. They don't seem to be in corporations' pockets. For example, the case of Philip Morris vs. Uruguay [1] recently ended in a complete vindication of Uruguay's right to restrict tobacco trademarks, and Philip Morris was ordered to pay Uruguay's legal fees. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Morris_v._Uruguay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Morris_v._Uruguay

Noseshine 10y ago
Do you have a link to something that has more data, and not just a single case? I would rather read that... :) . As an aside, what is going in here (HN) today? Is it that it's Sunday, attracting a different crowd than usual? In this thread and in many others I see many perfectly legit comments - that normally remain untouched by downvotes (and I've been here quite often the last two weeks at least) - got downvoted? For example (to give one in this thread) ComodoHacker's comment - light gray just now - "For whom?..." here. I'm not sure what's downvote-worthy pointing out that developing countries usually have severe issues with their legal system. I only ask because it's unusual from my recent experience here at least. If it was common I would not bother to mention it or ask. In another thread somebody asked the same question (and that comment was gray - of course).
- autokad 10y ago
  on HN, people down-vote opinions that dont conform to their own, and I think thats a really negative aspect of the site. The problem only gets exacerbated by the karma system, so people are afraid to say anything anyone might disagree with, or at least repeat what is popular. I try to avoid looking at the comments section if at all possible, but sometimes I might read them to see if there is more information, as this article didnt go into much detail on the specifics of what the disagreements were over. Overall, I say the HN comments section is down right poison.
  - 10y ago

avar 10y ago

How do you propose to mediate trade disputes between companies and states without something like the ISDS? Imagine this on say the US national level. Apple wants to sell its computers in Alaska, but Alaska has a domestic computing company that gets goverment subsidizes, creating unfair competition. In this case the federal government would step in. There's an analogous issue with international trade agreements. National governments will enter into those agreements, but their courts are always going to be biased towards their local constituents, so in my example Apple couldn't hope for a fair result by suing in Alaskan courts. So there needs to be some pan-national body to settle these sort of disputes without turning every little international company v.s. company or company v.s. government issue into a full-on diplomatic dispute between the respective governments involved. The ISDS in the TTIP seems like such a facility. Why is it unreasonable? I'm not some TTIP proponent or corporate shill, I'm just genuinely curious about this, it just seems to me that a lot of comments on the Internet, including on HN, have knee-jerk negative reactions to every provision in the TTIP without thinking about the real issues those provisions might be solving.

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
Apple was a bad example. What you should have gone with was a utility company or a bank. Those are necessary in every society and the "level playing field" of "reformed" economies desired by the West for trade agreements only really creates David-and-Goliath situations where David's slingshot was determined to be unfair domestic subsidization by the World Bank, IMF, etc.
- avar 10y ago
  Is it really a bad example? The typical scare story about trade agreements seems to be that they're going to result in some big scary multinational shutting off the water supply or something. Is that really the common case or even all that plausible? Or is it just going to be normal businesses like Apple colliding with some country's protectionist policies that are counter to the trade agreement? Besides, if these supposed kangaroo courts are really so unfair the aggrieved countries could just leave the TTIP. That seems to be another detail that's glossed over, that somehow these pan-national arbitration bodies are going to be corrupt, but not quite so corrupt that the trade agreement isn't an overall improvement for the countries involved, because otherwise they'd be pulling out of it, right?