The Crumbling Case of the Freakout Brigade: Trans-Pacific Trade Edition
So, the Huffington Post went on full freakout mode yesterday based on a leak from Public Citizen of a single chapter of a still-in-the-works trans-Pacific trade agreement with the United States that is still under consideration.
Sounds scary, don’t you think? That corporate-shilling, backstabbing good-for-nothing Obama! Impeach him!
Except, maybe one should ask if this is actually true. Would foreign corporations operating within the United States be able to contravene American law, and worse yet, appeal American legal or regulatory rulings in international tribunal?
Umm, no.
(T)here is no question of an international tribunal overruling a ruling from an American court or an administrative panel since once a foreign investor takes an issue to an American court or an administrative panel, they lose their right to go to the international tribunal. That is from the dispute section of the leaked document, which is itself a part of a good number of still-in-process documents constituting the agreement. And where Huffpo and Public Citizen came up with the concept of foreign companies gutting environmental regulations is beyond me, since this agreement - at least this leaked part - seems to exclusively cover financial investments and products.
But this would raise a legitimate question. Can a foreign investor just skip the American legal process and take everything to the international arbitration process provided for in the document? The answer to that is as follows: for any legal matter, no.
Here is what we do know, from the leaked document - it requires that the investments are made in accordance with the laws, administrative process and policies of the territory where the investment is made.
A simple reading of this would seem to indicate that foreign corporations that make investments in another country covered by this agreement would have to follow the laws and regulations in that country (the US, for example). The only disputes as a matter of law that would be the purview of the international arbitration, then, would be any laws or regulations that contradict and contravene the terms of the trade pact. Which, one might note, is traditionally the case under any trade agreements - as trade agreements are passed by Congress and are thus duly constituted US law.
And this process of mediation and arbitration is not alien to trade pacts. On the contrary, it’s the norm. When two parties are at a dispute over the terms of an agreement, they set up a process of mediation or arbitration to solve it. That has nothing whatsoever to do with exempting foreign corporations from laws that American corporations need to abide by.
So why the freakout? If you look at the people making the accusations, you can easily tell. Public Citizen - the organization founded by Ralph Nader, and an anti-free trade organization.
It’s a legitimate policy debate as to whether or not free trade is beneficial to the great many, and if so, what kind… What is not legitimate, however, is trying to score points based on misinterpretations and misdirections. What is not legitimate, is to manufacture outrage based upon the mere existence of an international dispute resolution panel. It is not legitimate to make outlandish claims based on a document that clearly does not support those claims.
These tactics, sadly, are no better than what the Right wing uses to stop progress. Groups and people that are against all trade agreements should make their case, not manufacture falsehoods to try to score fake points.
The People’s View
