investor-state disputes | ISDS
Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) refers to a way of handling conflicts under international investment agreements whereby companies from one party are allowed to sue the government of another party. This means they can file a complaint and seek compensation for damages. Many BITs and investment chapters of FTAs allow for this if the investor’s expectation of a profit has been negatively affected by some action that the host government took, such as changing a policy. The dispute is normally handled not in a public court but through a private abritration panel. The usual venues where these proceedings take place are the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (World Bank), the International Chamber of Commerce, the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law or the International Court of Justice.
ISDS is a hot topic right now because it is being challenged very strongly by concerned citizens in the context of the EU-US TTIP negotiations, the TransPacific Partnership talks and the CETA deal between Canada and the EU.
19-Jun-2015
Lexology
A consensus is clearly forming around changes and adjustments needed to reform ISDS, but the main stakeholders – businesses and governments – have yet to make a clear stand, argue Adrian-Catalin Bulboaca and Marius Iliescu
17-Jun-2015
Greece Today
According to SYRIZA, ISDS undermined economic democracy by treating the rights of peoples and their elected representatives as equal to the rights of an economic oligarchy, essentially amounting to an exemption for large multinationals from democratic controls and continuing a conversion of western democracies to states where elections cannot bring about changes to economic policy.
10-Jun-2015
The Guardian
Fifty years ago, an international legal system was created to protect the rights of foreign investors. Today, as companies win billions in damages, insiders say it has got dangerously out of control
9-Jun-2015
rabble.ca
What do we call it when Ottawa signs a deal with an unelected regime that would prevent any future elected government in a small African nation from changing its laws regulating Canadian-owned mines for almost two decades?
9-Jun-2015
Economic Times
India is caught in a pincer at this moment in time as it is faced with the twin need of FDIs to propel and sustain growth and also the need to fi rewall its sovereign rights to formulate policies without extraneous pressures from its trade partners and the corporate world.
9-Jun-2015
EurActiv
BusinessEurope, and especially its Director General, should be factual and truthful when lobbying the European Parliament on ISDS and TTIP, argue Bart Staes and Molly Scott Cato.
5-Jun-2015
EurActiv
Union leaders on both sides of the Atlantic have called for TTIP negotiators to drop extra-legal arbitration systems from any future trade deal. They believe existing judicial systems offer adequate protection to investors. EurActiv France reports.
5-Jun-2015
There has never been any doubt that the United States, and especially the US Congress, wields ultimate power over the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
4-Jun-2015
A new dump of leaked secretive trade deal documents on WikiLeaks reveals an international agreement could prevent future Australian governments from introducing regulations around licensing, qualifications and technical standards, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.
3-Jun-2015
EurActiv
France’s Minister of State for Foreign Trade, Matthias Fekl, delivered a proposal for TTIP arbitration reform in Brussels yesterday, in which he recommended the creation of a European court to settle trade disputes.
3-Jun-2015
Ars Technica UK
The German federal government has admitted that an EU country’s arts policies could lead to it being sued by foreign corporations before investor tribunals under trade agreements being negotiated with Canada and the US.
3-Jun-2015
OHCHR
A group of UN experts have issued the following statement to express concern about the secret nature of drawing up and negotiating many of these free trade and investment agreements, such as TPP and TTIP, and the potential adverse impact of these agreements on human rights.
2-Jun-2015
Newsday
A governernment official has warned Zanu PF supporters against invading commercial farms covered under Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements (Bippas) with foreign governments
29-May-2015
EESC
The European Economic and Social Committee, in its opinion adopted on 27 May, opposes the inclusion of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) or in the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA), as it believes such a system has the potential to derail both agreements.
28-May-2015
Congressional Research Service
This report for US Congress answers frequently asked questions about US international investment agreements including provisions for investor-state dispute settlement.
28-May-2015
BBC
The resolution supported by the committee does not explicitly call for a ban on controversial investor-to-state dispute mechanisms (ISDS), instead calling for the jurisdiction of national courts to be "respected" in the deal.
25-May-2015
NO 2 ISDS!
Join this e-action on the European Parliament, asking MEPs to pledge that they will reject ISDS in TTIP. The action is going to run until the vote in the plenary on 10 June and is available in 9 languages.
25-May-2015
Korea Herald
While the South Korean government is facing its second international arbitration under the investor-state dispute settlement system, civic groups are demanding that the details should be made public as they could cost several billion dollars of taxpayers’ money.
25-May-2015
The Ecologist
In the rush to oppose TTIP we mustn’t lose sight of the context in which the deal is being negotiated — the hundreds of bilateral treaties that give corporations the right to sue in secret ’trade courts’.
18-May-2015
Jakarta Post
Apart from its network of BITs, Indonesia is also a party to a number of multilateral and regional investment agreements such as the ASEAN Comprehensive Investment Agreement which also contain an ISDS clause, including recourse to ICSID arbitration.
