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>>...without turning every little international company v.s. company or company v.s. government issue into a full-on diplomatic dispute between the respective g

by mamon 10y ago

>>...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 thing is that "full-on diplomatic dispute" is the only fair way to settle that, because governments are chosen by people, so they are legal representatives of them. ISDS on the other hand is some shady institution without any democratic control, and probably sponsored by the very corporations they are supposed to judge. If you put things in perspective you can see what this TTIP deal is all about: big international corporations like Apple or Google don't like the fact that governments can create laws that they are obliged to respect. What corporations hate even more is every country having it's own set of laws to follow. So, the whole idea of TTIP is to strip governments (with possible exception of US government) of power over corporations.

danmaz74 10y ago
> because governments are chosen by people In some parts of the World...
- avar 10y ago
  We're discussing the TTIP here, which is exclusively a deal between western democracies. You may be confusing it with the TPP which e.g. includes Singapore.
avar 10y ago
I think you're fundamentally misunderstanding representative democracies. Nothing about them says the can't enter into an agreement to create a pan-national body to settle trade disputes, as opposed to escalating every incident to a diplomatic dispute. If people don't like that they'll make in an election issue, and either it'll be re-negotiated after the next election or the nation will leave the trade agreement. That's the democratic process at work. How is that a better option anyway? So now instead of some court that has to be seen to be fair to the entire trade block deciding things, you want to have n^2 potential dispute mechanisms in place between the n countries that are part of the agreement? > big international corporations [...] don't like the fact that > governments can create laws that they are obliged to respect. Or you could look at this from the flip side of that argument, which is that it's detrimental to international trade if companies can't make international investments without being at risk to domastic political whimsy that runs counter to the spirit of the trade deal that was initially agreed upon.
- PhasmaFelis 10y ago
  > I think you're fundamentally misunderstanding representative democracies. Nothing about them says the can't enter into an agreement to create a pan-national body to settle trade disputes, as opposed to escalating every incident to a diplomatic dispute. If people don't like that they'll make in an election issue, and either it'll be re-negotiated after the next election or the nation will leave the trade agreement. That's the democratic process at work. Quite. Is someone proposing that we do otherwise? If not, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. > Or you could look at this from the flip side of that argument, which is that it's detrimental to international trade if companies can't make international investments without being at risk to domastic political whimsy that runs counter to the spirit of the trade deal that was initially agreed upon. I'm not sure why governments should be more concerned about promoting international trade than about protecting their citizens. See e.g. the fracking thing upthread.
WalterBright 10y ago
When investing in a country, what businesses want are predictable laws and consistent enforcement of them. Then they can decide if it is worthwhile to invest. An anathema to investment are arbitrary and capricious laws and enforcement. Countries with such a legal system tend to remain poor because few are willing to risk investing in their economies.

by mamon 10y ago

danmaz74 10y ago

> because governments are chosen by people In some parts of the World...

avar 10y ago
We're discussing the TTIP here, which is exclusively a deal between western democracies. You may be confusing it with the TPP which e.g. includes Singapore.

avar 10y ago

I think you're fundamentally misunderstanding representative democracies. Nothing about them says the can't enter into an agreement to create a pan-national body to settle trade disputes, as opposed to escalating every incident to a diplomatic dispute. If people don't like that they'll make in an election issue, and either it'll be re-negotiated after the next election or the nation will leave the trade agreement. That's the democratic process at work. How is that a better option anyway? So now instead of some court that has to be seen to be fair to the entire trade block deciding things, you want to have n^2 potential dispute mechanisms in place between the n countries that are part of the agreement? > big international corporations [...] don't like the fact that > governments can create laws that they are obliged to respect. Or you could look at this from the flip side of that argument, which is that it's detrimental to international trade if companies can't make international investments without being at risk to domastic political whimsy that runs counter to the spirit of the trade deal that was initially agreed upon.

PhasmaFelis 10y ago
> I think you're fundamentally misunderstanding representative democracies. Nothing about them says the can't enter into an agreement to create a pan-national body to settle trade disputes, as opposed to escalating every incident to a diplomatic dispute. If people don't like that they'll make in an election issue, and either it'll be re-negotiated after the next election or the nation will leave the trade agreement. That's the democratic process at work. Quite. Is someone proposing that we do otherwise? If not, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. > Or you could look at this from the flip side of that argument, which is that it's detrimental to international trade if companies can't make international investments without being at risk to domastic political whimsy that runs counter to the spirit of the trade deal that was initially agreed upon. I'm not sure why governments should be more concerned about promoting international trade than about protecting their citizens. See e.g. the fracking thing upthread.

WalterBright 10y ago

When investing in a country, what businesses want are predictable laws and consistent enforcement of them. Then they can decide if it is worthwhile to invest. An anathema to investment are arbitrary and capricious laws and enforcement. Countries with such a legal system tend to remain poor because few are willing to risk investing in their economies.