..."It wouldn't matter if a substance was liquid plutonium destined for a child's breakfast cereal. If the government bans a product and a US based company loses profits, the company can claim damages under NAFTA."
(Source : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/14/trade-deal-food-safety- n7287622.html )
This bone chilling response came from a corporate attorney working for the Ethyl Corporation, during a 1997 NAFTA challenge against the Canadian government. Canada had outlawed the gasoline additive MMT over possible health concerns. Ethyl was the U.S. corporation that produced the gasoline additive MMT which had been banned in Canada. Ethyl corporation brought its objections to the international arbitration panel under the Investor-State Dispute Settlement system, aka ISDS; to claim damages for lost profits, under NAFTA. Ethyl argued that the law banning this additive was ...'tantamount to expropriation.' (Source : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/14/trade-deal-food-safety-_n_7287622.html )
Under NAFTA--Ethyl won and consumers lost. The Canadian government had to transfer 13 million from taxpayers-- to Ethyl. The Canadian people's right to self-govern was nullified by this corporate pseudo-legal theft. Concerns over possible health damage or even the right of self-governance were sacrificed to the gods of corporate profits. Subsequently the callous arrogance of the 'liquid plutonium in Junior's Captain Crunch' commentary, merely matched the arrogance of this new class of 'corporate royalists'--namely the arbitrators of the Investor-State Dispute Settlement industry, aka--ISDS.
ISDS--the core weapon of mass destruction in BIT's/MIT's/IIT's, including TPP/TTIP...
The Investor-State Dispute Settlement contrivance (or ISDS), is the political 'wet-dream' of the 'judicial-industrial complex.' A Goliath by legal standards; ISDS is the extra-judicial glue which holds together a new, more lethal form of corporate feudalism. Corporations and corporate legal firms win, and the rest of us lose, as armies of 'arbitration' attorneys and appointed arbitrators create 'get out of jail free' cards for corporate criminals--wholesale.
What is ISDS?
ISDS or international investor arbitration is an alleged mediation tool between party signatories of any IIT. It was created by the granddaddy of all IIT's--namely NAFTA, under Bill Clinton. Chapter 11 of NAFTA empowers ISDS as the instrument to provide foreign investors standing for ..."legal certainty." (Source : http://www.state.gov/s/l/c3439.htm ) Foreign investors, (read foreign corporations), demanded an end-run around the legitimate 'rule of law', in what they perceived as unstable nations. Apparently, democracies are considered 'unstable.'
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