Unfortunately for all of us if the TPP goes into effect, what Spocko said about the international tribunals is spot on - TPP would empower foreign corporations (including US firms that use foreign subsidiaries) to skirt US law and courts and demand compensation before intl tribunals for any govt action or policy that they claim undermines their new privileges in the agt and that undermines their expected future profits. Go here http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=5411&frcrld=1 to read more about it and to see the leaked text of the TPP’s investment chapter. The text is quite clear, this is not speculative. It is the same as the “investor-state dispute resolution” (ISDR) that was in NAFTA, but greatly expanded re what sorts of policies can be attacked. And, there is no domestic court review of the tribunal rulings on the merits. Three private sector attorneys meeting in secret would be empowered to decide if an investor’s expectations were undermined, among other totally speculative standards and order payment. Not only is there no outside appeal, but there is no internal appeal. This regime, which operates under the World Bank’s ICSID or UN UNCITRAL rules (the corp decides which to use), permits only what are called “annulment” claims for gross conflict of interest or other serious tribunal misconduct. (Tho when Argentina tried to get the huge payment ordered to Vivendi annulled over a reversal of a water privatization - because one of the 3 attorney serving as tribunalists in the case wa son the board of a bank that was a major shareholder in Vivendi, the annulment was rejected…) You can see more about this whole ISDR problem in TPP here http://kluwerarbitrationblog.com/blog/2013/01/07/brewing-storm-over-isdr-clouds-trans-pacific-partnership-talks-part-i/
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