Must-Read: As I understand it, all precedent suggests that ISDS provisions are not a problem for the United States. ISDS panels make their determinations, and as a result other countries gain or fail to gain the right to impose countervailing duties on U.S. exports–and then the negotiations begin, with the first move being the U.S. negotiators say: “Do you really think this company of yours now waving around an ISDS panel ruling has a strong enough case that you want to seriously risk pissing us off?” It is much easier all around for everyone if the ISDS panel rules for the United States–and the pattern of rulings in the ten years we have watched this instrumentality at work strongly suggest that that is how it works.
Of course: things could change. And ISDS panels do rule against other countries’ governments–that is, after all, why the U.S. has put ISDS into this agreement: to give its companies protection.
But the disturbing thing is that I do not understand these institutions very well–neither how they are formally supposed to work, how they work in practice, and why they work the way that they appear to do:
: Feb. 11 Newsmaker Panel Asserts that the Proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership’s ISDS Provision Will Undermine U.S. Courts and Legislative Bodies: “What are the ramifications of the Trans-Pacific Partnership…
…and in particular will the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provision of TPP take the enforcement of U.S. laws out of the hands of the nation’s courts and legislatures in favor of corporate-controlled tribunals? On Feb. 11, at 10 a.m., in the National Press Club’s Bloomberg Room, three experts on trade and investment law will address a National Press Club Newsmaker news conference…. Joseph Stiglitz… Lise Johnson… Ralph E. Gomory