"Negotiations began last month on the most important free trade agreement ever drafted. The TTIP, or Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, will make the rules for fully half the world economy's GDP. US-European annual goods and services trade amounts to some trillion and a half dollars, but there is little to negotiate on direct barriers such as tariffs - these average a mere 3 per cent. The goals are instead to eliminate BBBs or "behind borders barriers", including regulations and public services, and to obtain total freedom for TNC investors, particularly the investor-to-state clause."
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
Wed, 2013-09-04 10:19
#1
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
Wed, 2013-09-04 10:22
#2
Democracy in danger: the rise of illegitimate authority
What is legitimate government? Since the late 18th century, the Western consensus has required at a minimum popular sovereignty, free and fair elections and legally binding citizens' rights.
Differences of degree have always existed and the battle to extend democratic freedoms is never-ending and knows no frontiers. People now overthrow tyrants in unexpected places; millions of Egyptians have lately reminded us that the right to oust an elected leader who neither keeps his promises nor honours his obligations is also part of the democratic canon.
Legitimacy demands above all the consent of the governed. This in turn means that the governed must have the capacity to reject illegitimate authority. But what if they are unable to detect and identify illegitimate rule in the first place? What if the real governing bodies are shadowy entities, known mostly to specialists and which carefully refrain from publicising their activities? What is the citizens' recourse?
Knowledge is the first requirement and the media are of little help in this department. How many journalists let alone ordinary people have ever heard of the International Accounting Standards Board? How boring! Who wants to read about accounting? Invented as a simple advisory group by the European Union which needed to deal with many disparate accounting systems in its member states, the IASB brought together executives or retirees of the Big Four transnational accounting firms. It became official in 2005 and since then, dozens of countries including Australia have decided to follow its rules....
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-28/george-democracy-in-danger-the-ris...
Sat, 2013-09-07 00:52
#3
Dismantle the WTO And the Free Trade Regime
To Confront the Climate Emergency We Need to Dismantle the WTO And the Free Trade Regime
quote:
People and Nature first!
To address the climate emergency we need to not only stop the expansion of the WTO and FTAs but we need to go beyond that and call for an end to the WTO itself and the free trade regime. There is no more time for half-measures. If we are to save nature and humanity, we need to change the system and changing the system means dismantling the free trade regime.
WTO rulings like in the Ontario case cannot be allowed to proliferate. Governments should not have to follow rulings that undermine initiatives to address climate change. Human rights, labor rights, indigenous rights and the rights of Mother Earth have to be above trade rules if we want to preserve life as we know it....
Thu, 2014-05-08 22:47
#4
..this excellent video speaks of que (and much much more) being sued for $250 million by the corp lone pine for placing the moratorium on fracking.
NO FRACKING WAY | How the EU-US trade deal risks expanding fracking in Europe and the US | news release [2014]
A trade agreement currently being negotiated between the US and the EU could open the way to multi-billion euro lawsuits from companies wanting to expand “fracking” for shale gas and oil, reveals a new report today. As part of the proposed investor rights chapter in the EU-US trade deal, companies could be allowed to sue governments, through a binding arbitration system that operates outside national frameworks, if they attempt to regulate or ban fracking. Campaigning groups are urging the EU to not include such rights in the trade deal.