Last week I was invited to the British-German Forum – a symposium for young people from both countries – at Wilton Park, an agency of the FCO, to talk with my colleague Jan Stern from the German trade union confederation the DGB, about the issues facing globalisation. Here’s an…Read more…
ECJ Singapore ruling adds to case against ISDS in Brexit deal
Today the European Court of Justice (ECJ) gave an important boost to the case for scrapping Investor State Dispute Settlement, as well as other corporate court systems like it, in trade agreements. Part of the ECJ’s ruling today was that trade deals that contain ISDS need to be ratified in EU…Read more…
Drop the MIC
Yesterday the TUC responded to the European Commission’s consultation on its plans to develop a global version of the notorious Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS). ISDS is the court system found in thousands of trade and investment agreements that foreign investors have used to sue…Read more…
Putting all our eggs in Empire 2.0 – risking rights & living standards
Ahead of Commonwealth Day tomorrow, Commonwealth trade ministers were in London last week, hosted by the UK international trade minister and leading Leave supporter Liam Fox. The media claimed that several Commonwealth countries were ‘first in the queue’ to do a trade deal with the UK…Read more…
OECD must involve workers in developing global rules on investment
On Tuesday I spoke at a conference held at the OECD in Paris on the costs and benefits of investment protection agreements like Investor-State Dispute Settlement. In the morning conference participants had heard something important – the experts gathered by the OECD had, in all their…Read more…
Free trade: what would it take to get union backing?
Today I was asked to give a speech at the Foreign Office by Liam Fox, Secretary of State for International Trade, about free trade. This is an edited version of my remarks. The debate over free trade is a timely one, given that those who advocate prote…Read more…
#CETA: zombie trade deal is no recipe for #Brexit
Today the Prime Minister of Canada flew into Brussels to sign the EU-Canada so-called trade agreement known as CETA – the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement – with the European Union. For the past fortnight, the signing had been held up by the French speaking regional parliament…Read more…
New declaration shows why countries must say NO to CETA deal
Yesterday an add-on to the CETA EU-Canada trade agreement proposed by the European Commission and the Canadian government (titled a ‘joint interpretive declaration’) was leaked. Trade ministers from EU countries will be asked to vote on CETA in just over a week on October 18 so the purpose of the…Read more…
As Portugal tries to take back control of Metro Lisbon, Mexican privateers turn to #ISDS
One of the main complaints unions make about the investment protection elements of trade deals known as Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) is that it would be used against governments trying to bring privatised services back into public ownership. “Oh no it won’t!” cry…Read more…
Trade deals still on the Brussels agenda – we say no!
Despite the Prime Minister’s mantra that “Brexit means Brexit”, the UK is still engaged in negotiating so-called trade deals as part of the EU, so yesterday, the TUC sent a small…Read more…
CETA: why TTIP’s death is being exaggerated
The UK media this weekend has reported the death of the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the EU-US so-called trade deal which – as Buzzfeed reported this week – would legalise corporate malfeasance and profiteering by including a discredited Investor State Dispute…Read more…
EU launches consultation on social impact of TTIP
Last week, the European Commission launched a consultation on its latest ‘Sustainability Impact Assessment’ report of the EU-US trade deal known as TTIP. Beneath this rather technical title lies an important opportunity for campaigners to call for TTIP negotiations to dramatically change direction…Read more…
#TTIPleaks show the UK government is actively choosing not to protect NHS and public services
Some have been using the Greenpeace leaks of negotiating texts from the EU-US trade deal known as TTIP to claim Britain should leave the EU to escape damaging trade rules being imposed on us by shady Brussels negotiators. But disturbingly, what they actually show (adding to evidence we had from…Read more…
#ISDS: Government position shows ideology trumps evidence
We’re often told that Governments are committed to ‘evidence-based policy making’, although it often seems that it’s the other way round. Now we see, starkly revealed, how far the UK government’s trade policy is based far more on ideology than evidence. A Freedom of…Read more…
Clinton & Sanders show the way on ‘trade’ agreements
While the current Democratic President of the USA, Barack Obama, tours Europe to raise support for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the two candidates scrapping to be his successor back home are setting out markedly different …Read more…
EU trade deal with Canada amended: not good enough
On Monday, European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström trumpeted what she called a major step forward on trade – a revised version of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the EU and Canada. The main difference was that in place of the infamous Investor-State Dispute…Read more…
How ISDS undermines the global march to democracy
I’m halfway through an event about the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) at Wilton Park, the FCO’s conference centre, and it’s the usual stimulating mix of stakeholders (a handful of business and union representatives), senior civil servants from various…Read more…
Is the EU-Canada trade deal hitting the rocks?
The election of a charismatic young Liberal Prime Minister – Justin Trudeau – is just one development that has cast doubt on the future of the Canada-EU trade deal negotiated under his Conservative predecessor Stephen Harper. Although firmly committed to signing the Trans-Pacific…Read more…
TTIP: due for a diet in the New Year resolutions?
When the negotiations for an EU-US trade deal – the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) – were launched back in 2013, advocates of the deal predicted that it could be completed “on one tank of gas”, before the US Presidential elections brought Barack…Read more…
ISDS: even when Governments win, we all lose
We’re often told we shouldn’t worry about Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) in the new generation of so-called ‘free’ trade agreements, because the UK Government doesn’t lose cases. In practice that’s because most UK agreements containing ISDS have been…Read more…