The free trade deal (Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement) now being organised between our government and other foreign governments is likely to lead to possibly the greatest corruption seen throughout the world.
In these agreements are clauses known as Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) clauses that allow multinational corporations to sue governments for billions of dollars if that country’s laws or regulations affect their profits.
The international disputes between corporations and countries will be arbitrated by special international tribunals. The people who sit on these panels are nominated by both parties and the UN panel for disputes.
Alarmingly, the people who sit on these panels and who make the decisions in one case can be the judge and in the next case can be a council representing a multinational corporation. This leads to a huge conflict of interest as a member of the panel, when as a judge in one case gives a decision not in favour of the corporation would likely not get employed again as a council representing corporations again! i.e. they could be out of a big-paying job or career.
As these possible corrupt decisions can, and will be, worth hundreds of billions of dollars, governments will come more under the power of multinationals.
There are no appeal courts to appeal these international decisions, and apparently no international policeman to deal with the immense corruption that will probably come about.
Our politicians and journalists must remove the blinkers from their eyes to stop this international agreement and the giving up of our sovereignty.
Bob Patrech
Retired