Do you think that multinational corporations should be able to dictate Government policy?
One of the clauses in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) will allow large multinational corporations to sue individual European governments for billions of pounds for passing laws that might reduce the company’s profits.
These could be laws that, say, raise the minimum wage or protect the environment or our health.
Does this sound far-fetched? We know it could happen, because it is ALREADY happening around the world.
For example:
Philip Morris, the US tobacco company is suing the Australian government for billions of dollars for the public health policy that all cigarettes should be sold in plain packaging. Philip Morris is also suing Uruguay for putting graphic health warnings on cigarette packets.
Ecuador has been ordered to pay Occidental Petroleum $1.77 billion in damages for terminating the oil company’s contract after they broke Ecuadorian law.
Canada banned a fuel additive called MMT over fears that it was damaging to health, particularly foetuses and newborns. Under the North American Free Trade Agreement Canada was sued by US company Ethyl and forced to revoke the ban.
Argentina was sued over measures to reduce the impact of its economic collapse on its people; measures such as freezing energy prices. After many years of fighting cases, it was forced to pay $500 million to settle the claims of 5 different companies
Veolia, the waste and energy company sued Egypt for adversely affecting its profit margins by trying to keep private and public salaries in line with inflation.
Costa Rica is facing a claim for $1 billion from a Canadian mining firm after rejecting plans for an opencast gold mine in a rainforest when 75% of the public opposed it.
There are many, many more examples of this type. Too many to list.
In addition, some companies are setting up an office abroad, to sue their OWN governments under these international Investor-State dispute rules. Canada had to pay $122 million to a Canadian paper company suing its own government from an office in the US.
If TTIP goes ahead, these actions by US corporations against our government will not go through our judicial system but be decided by corporate lawyers in closed arbitration in New York. David Cameron has said that he has no fears that the UK government would ever lose a case. EVEN IF that is true, do you want your taxes spent by the government in fighting cases against, for example, Monsanto, which could last for years? Or would your rather they went to the NHS, policing, education....... the things that we expect the government to spend our money on?
While I was campaigning against TTIP, several people said to me, “But the government is in the pockets of the corporations anyway”. Well, it’s true that corporate lobbyists have more power over our elected politicians than most of us would like. But what if one day we elected a government that DID wish to stand up to corporate pressure? If TTIP is passed, they would not be able to, as it would mean the risk of legal action.
In fact fear of legal action could prevent governments from even attempting to raise the minimum wage, or protect or health or environment.
Do you think that the democratically elected British government should be passing laws to protect us or the profits of multinational corporations?
If you care about democracy please go to https://stop-ttip.org and sign the petition.
Stop-TTIP has been set up by a group of nearly 300 human rights, animal welfare, environmental and health groups and workers unions.
This is a much-simplified summary of a section of a fully-referenced paper which you can read in full here if you wish: http://www.waronwant.org/attachments/HILARY_LONDON_FINAL_WEB.pdf
