Multinationals Use International Tribunals to Overpower 
Nation-States

By Michael Busch
 
Foreign Policy in Focus (June 15 2012)

http://billtotten.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/multinationals-use-international-tribunals-to-overpower-nation-states/

A leaked document {1} posted at Public Citizen {2} last night
offers a stark reminder of the rising power transnational
corporations enjoy in the domestic settings of nation-states
where they do business. The Huffington Post’s Zach Carter
writes that {3}

  The newly leaked document is one of the most controversial
  of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact. It addresses a
  broad sweep of regulations governing international
  investment and reveals the Obama administration’s advocacy
  for policies that environmental activists, financial reform
  advocates and labor unions have long rejected for eroding
  key protections currently in domestic laws.

As Carter points out, "The terms run contrary to campaign
promises issued by Obama and the Democratic Party during the
2008 campaign" {4}.

The threat faced by nation-states from the growing power of
multinational corporations is very real. At the center of
concern is the power that multinationals have to override the
domestic laws of countries through the arm of international
tribunals tasked with adjudicating trade disputes between
states and multinational firms. The most important example
that illustrates this concern, as Carter rightly points out,
is the case currently before a World Bank tribunal assessing
the claims of a Canadian firm arguing for its right to mine
for gold in El Salvador irrespective of the objections of the
country’s government and people.

To read more, go to 
http://billtotten.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/multinationals-use-international-tribunals-to-overpower-nation-states/

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