<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:large"><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="m_7391809560151418763moz-forward-container"><br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername" dir="auto">Mónica Vargas C.</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:m.vargas@tni.org">m.vargas@tni.org</a>></span><br>
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          <p><b><font size="+2"><span>As the world meets to discuss
                  ISDS, many fear meaningless reforms</span></font></b></p>
          <p>by Alexander Beunder & Jilles Mast<br>
          </p>
          <p><i>This week, representatives of around 100 countries are
              meeting in New York to talk about investor-state dispute
              settlement (ISDS). ISDS is a legal instrument that
              multinationals can use to sue governments for billions.
              External experts and observers fear that the new
              negotiations will amount to ‘old wine in new bottles’.
              They believe that those who benefit from this instrument
              (powerful states and top lawyers from the ISDS sector) are
              controlling the debate.</i></p>
          <p> </p>
          <b>Read the full article at: </b><b><a class="m_7391809560151418763moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://longreads.tni.org/isds-many-fear-meaningless-reforms/" target="_blank">http://longreads.tni.org/isds-many-fear-meaningless-reforms/</a></b>
          <p><u>Share on:</u><br>
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          <p><font size="+1"><i><br>
              </i></font></p>
          <p><font size="+1"><i>Summary</i></font><br>
          </p>
          <ul>
            <li>This week, delegations from around 100 countries are
              meeting in New York to discuss investor-state dispute
              settlement (ISDS).</li>
          </ul>
          <ul>
            <li>ISDS is a provision in more than 3,000 investment
              treaties that gives corporations the right to sue national
              governments through arbitration, circumventing national
              judicial systems, whenever they find that governments
              infringe upon their rights as investors.</li>
          </ul>
          <ul>
            <li>After 942 ISDS cases, a growing number of countries,
              NGOs and academics are voicing their concerns about this
              provision. ‘Big corporations and the super-rich, along
              with the arbitration industry [the lawyers who argue ISDS
              cases] are by far the main beneficiaries of ISDS’, says
              Canadian professor Gus Van Harten.</li>
          </ul>
          <ul>
            <li>Within a working group of a UN commission (UNCITRAL
              Working Group III), delegates from 60 countries will
              convene this week for the fourth time, along with observer
              delegations from countries including the Netherlands, to
              address concerns over ISDS and design reforms. These
              negotiations began in 2017.</li>
          </ul>
          <ul>
            <li>Critics who attended the meetings claim that advocates
              of ISDS (certain powerful countries and lawyers from the
              ‘arbitration industry’) have a strong influence over the
              agenda during the talks. Whenever critical delegations
              like South Africa have the floor, ‘their criticisms
              sometimes don’t even make it into the official reports’,
              says New Zealand legal scholar Jane Kelsey</li>
          </ul>
          <ul>
            <li>ISDS lawyers appear to hold administrative positions
              within the working group and are represented in large
              numbers in the advisory bodies that have been established
              for the working group.</li>
          </ul>
          <ul>
            <li>There are also external ‘observer’ organisations
              consisting mainly of lawyers and corporates, while civil
              society is underrepresented.</li>
          </ul>
          <ul>
            <li>‘Broader criticisms are being ignored’ during the talks,
              says Kelsey. In her view, the talks will result in ‘old
              wine in new wineskins’.</li>
          </ul>
          <ul>
            <li>One of the proposals on the agenda is a permanent
              investment court. According to the EU, this will address
              ‘all concerns’. Professor Van Harten says, however, that a
              permanent court could end up ‘institutionalising [ISDS]
              without addressing the key flaws’.<br>
            </li>
          </ul><br>
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