Investor-State Dispute Settlement
August 19, 2019: The Financial Times is reporting that a future UK Labour government could face a flood of ISDS claims if it were to attempt to nationalise utility services. The report comes after the Labour Party announced its plan to nationalise the energy grid and other unities if it were elected in the next general election, and warned that compensation could be below market value.
August 14, 2019: a new 16-minute video by UK organisations Global Justice Now and War on Want documents the threat that ISDS is posing to democratic protest in Armenia.
August 13, 2019: In a submission to the UNCITRAL review of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), ClientEarth, an environmental law organisation, has detailed the threat that ISDS poses to action on climate change.
July 24, 2019: Canadian academic Kyla Tienhaara argues in an article in the Conversation that a recent ISDS ruling, which ordered Pakistan to pay US$5.8 billion to mining company Tethyan Copper, is a sign that the global economic governance model is broken.
July 16, 2019: Media reports from South Korea have suggested that South Korean Prime Minister Mr. Lee Nak-Yeon is considering abolishing ISDS from Korean Trade agreements. The reports state that Prime Minister Lee Nak-Yeon made the remark in the National Assembly while responding to a lawmaker, Mr. Song, at the plenary session of the Budget and Accounting Committee.
July 4, 2019: Sam Cossar from Friends of the Earth explains in The Ecologist why investor rights to sue governments when they act to protect people and the environment should be kept out of the RCEP and other trade deals.
June 25, 2019: A new report "Red carpet courts: 10 stories of how the rich and powerful hijacked justice" published by Friends of the Earth, the Transnational Institute (TNI) and Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) presents ten ISDS cases that have been filed, threatened or decided since 2015. The report aims to show the human stories behind these ISDS cases.
June 24 2019: Leaders of the ten ASEAN countries met in Bangkok on June 22 and urged support for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade and investment deal between ASEAN and India, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. But community organisation advocates meeting before the ASEAN summit argued that the RCEP development model favours international investor interests over people and the environment.
June 12, 2019: A new study of trade and investment deals concluded in 2018 by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) shows that most have either omitted ISDS altogether or severely limited its scope. This reflects growing concerns about ISDS cases based on older treaties that have no provisions to prevent or limit foreign investors from suing governments over health, environment and other public interest laws. The UN Commission on on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) is currently conducting a review of ISDS based on such concerns which has prompted sharp debate.
May 30, 2019: In a recent interview with Reuters Columbia University Professor Joseph Stiglitz has slammed trade deals that include Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS). ISDS enables foreign investor rights to sue governments for millions in international tribunals over changes to environmental laws.