4 ms·
It's stupid to see this as US companies vs. EU consumers and vice versa. It should be seen as gigantic companies against small companies and consumers. American
by lumberjack 12y ago
It's stupid to see this as US companies vs. EU consumers and vice versa. It should be seen as gigantic companies against small companies and consumers. American or European makes little difference.
It's still an affront to democracy that commercial entities with enough political clout can sue whole countries because those countries dared to believe in their sovereignty.
I understand that it is a mechanism to reduce risk and therefore incentive wealth creation but when you have to make exceptions to democracy and sovereignty is when I say that your pursuit of wealth creation has become a bit too fanatical.
- danbruc 12y agoThe opinions are not all that simple, I just focused on that because the article also focuses an it. But big US oil companies vs European tax payers compensating them because they are denied to use fracking techniques does obviously not require many words to explain and therefore opinions are certainly dominated by simple arguments.
- kretor 12y agoThe oil companies could only successfully sue for compensation for being banned from fracking, when the ban only applies to foreign companies, i.e. only when the ban is discriminatory. Source: The EU commission says “The protection given covers a limited number of specific actions which can concretely affect an investor’s daily business operations in a foreign market, i.e. discrimination, denial of access to justice, expropriation without compensation and the inability to transfer capital to invest.“
- walterbell 12y agoSome rebuttals to EU commission rebuttals on ISDS, http://www.computerworlduk.com/blogs/open-enterprise/ttip-update-iii-3569416/ http://www.computerworlduk.com/blogs/open-enterprise/ttip-up...
- snarfy 12y agoWeakening sovereignty is the goal, IMO. This is nothing about trade.