The Investor-State Dispute Settlement clause is included in all the new trade treaties. This website, in contrast to corporate media, explains how these neoliberal trade treaties actually give more rights to investors than to entire countries. Here is one question and revealing answer provided by the people at the ISDS Platform:
Why is ISDS so problematic?If you peruse other current articles on this website you will learn that most of the arbitration hearings are held in secret. It's obvious why corporate media refuses to cover these new trade treaties in any depth. Corporate media's function is to serve the interests of a tiny class of people known by various names: capitalists, investors, corporations, etc. Their mission is to serve their US-led Empire and to maintain your ignorance about the neoliberal trade treaties and all other matters that might impinge upon opportunities to enhance the wealth and power for this tiny class of people.
In effect, ISDS creates a parallel business-friendly judicial system exclusively for transnational corporations. The power rests upon for-profit arbitrators who come from the corporate sector and face unverifiable conflicts of interest. They have no sovereign legitimacy and are not accountable to the public. The decisions they make can be inconsistent between one another and cannot be appealed. Plus, the arbitrators effectively serve as judge and party, because the same appointed arbitrators who plead the case for the parties make the decision. Imagine a football match where the referee plays for one of the teams! With ISDS, this becomes a possible scenario. So much for justice.
