Imagine a world where Taiwan could not legally challenge multinationals like RCA for its deadly pollution of Taoyuan. Such is the world augured by the CPTPP.
The News Lens
Date: 2018/10/22
By: Lu Chien-yi
Credit: 拒絕被遺忘的聲音－RCA工殤口述史 / Facebook
Do you care about the land, environment, and health of workers and citizens in Taiwan? If so, you should be fearful of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, also known as the TPP-11 or the CPTPP, which the government is pushing to join. Before we strive to join the trade agreement, we should gain a working knowledge of what it contains.
The CPTPP contains something called Investor State Dispute Settlements (ISDS), which are extrajudicial arbitration courts exclusively designed for, and exclusively used by, multinational corporations. Once a country’s government signs and recognizes an investment partnership agreement containing a provision for ISDS tribunals, jurisdiction over disputes involving multinational corporations of contracting countries is transferred from the country’s judicial system to the hands of ISDS courts, which operate separately from the state.
In other words, when multinational corporations become embroiled in legal disputes involving environmental pollution, labor exploitation, or consumer disputes, Taiwan’s sovereign and independent judicial system retains absolutely zero jurisdiction. The legal status of ISDS courts, as defined by Chapter 9 of the CPTPP treaty, is above that of a sovereign state.
The court is ostensibly designed to give multinational corporations a space for smooth international arbitration without the involvement of multiple judicial interventions. However, in past ISDS tribunals, judges responsible for arbitration have often been enterprise lawyers friendly with the multinational corporations whose behavior they are tasked with regulating. [FULL STORY]
