© Michael Kappeler/Agence France-Presse
Activists work on a float showing Angela Merkel lighting a TTIP-bomb during a demonstration in Berlin, 9 October 2015
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"A revolution against the law"
That's how UN independent expert Alfred de Zayas describes the controversial and increasingly used 'investor-state dispute settlement' mechanism which enables corporations to sue states for lost profits -
including those yet to be made.
The UK government want this 'corporate court' included in the secretly negotiated EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (
TTIP). This is despite widespread public opposition that resulted in the biggest ever response to a European Commission public consultation: 97% of people called for investor-state dispute settlement to be removed from TTIP.
TTIP is promoted as being focused on the
"shared values" of the USA and EU, including "upholding and promoting human rights". However,
the USA and EU prefer to protect corporations from human rights law; they were the strongest opponents of a UN move to create a binding mechanism for holding corporations accountable to international human rights law supported by 80 countries and 400 organisations.
In June, an unprecedented 10 UN independent experts released a joint statement outlining their fears for human rights in the 'new generation' trade deals including TTIP.
So, in honour of Human Rights Day, here are three ways that investor-state dispute settlement cases have led to the trading of human rights for profit.
Comment: The parents should sue the school and the police for the overly hysterical reaction to a violation of school dress code. Whatever happened to detention or suspending students? The punishment far outreaches the crime here, and the authorities involved should face the consequences of their ridiculous overreaction.