2 ms·
I think you're fundamentally misunderstanding representative democracies. Nothing about them says the can't enter into an agreement to create a pan-national bod
by 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.