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sovereignty | democracy

How the European Commission bypasses opposition to controversial trade deal
11-Apr-2025 Friends of the Earth Europe
The European Commission already expressed its wish to use a procedural trick to fast-track the ratification and bypass the opposition of several member states and national parliaments: the so-called ‘splitting’.
Conflicts of interest and sovereignty at stake: The Ecuador-Canada FTA
2-Apr-2025 CEPR
Ecuador’s free trade agreement with Canada presents a glaring conflict of interest for President Noboa, whose family, one of Ecuador’s wealthiest, has a sizable financial stake in a Canada-based mining company.
Honduras fights back against global oligarchy
18-Mar-2025 Public Seminar
How an unregulated techno-utopia came into existence and continues to sabotage a nation’s sovereignty.
Crypto bros are trying to bankrupt Honduras for scuttling their private cities
6-Feb-2025 Foreign Policy in Focus
After throwing off its narco-dictatorship, Honduras is trying to take its cities back from US-based libertarians.
How to buy a piece of a lawsuit and impoverish a country
10-Dec-2024 Inside Climate News
Investors buying into claims against governments are winning huge payouts. Developing nations, and the environment, are losing big.
EU-Mercosur free trade, deep darkness
21-Nov-2024 Great Italian Food Trade
Fundamental decisions for the lives of nearly a tenth of the world’s population are taken on their behalf without even informing them. What democracy, what rights?
‘Mafia investments against Honduras’. New report exposes corporate demands after coup d’état
3-Oct-2024 bilaterals.org
A new report, ’Mafia investments against Honduras’, examines the worrying situation in which the Central American country finds itself in the face of claims brought by transnational corporations before international arbitration tribunals.
The for-profit city that might come crashing down
29-Aug-2024 New York Times
The dream of Próspera, founded by a US corporation off the coast of Honduras, was to escape government control. The Honduran government wants it gone but Próspera filed an astronomical $10.775 billion lawsuit against the state.
Stop burdening people at the end of the term, Mr. President!
23-Jul-2024 Bilaterals.org
A total of 37 organizations and 29 people conveyed their urge to President Joko Widodo via open letter to stop negotiations between Indonesia - European Union Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (I-EU CEPA). This demand was conveyed after Indonesia completed the 19th round of negotiations on 1-5 July 2024 behind closed doors.
When investors subvert states
18-Jul-2024 The Jordan Times
Imagine a scenario where a private company effectively creates and controls its own jurisdiction within a sovereign country. This company introduces its own currency, enacts laws, and establishes courts, prisons, police forces and even intelligence services.
How investment treaties undermine the voices of local communities
20-Jun-2024 Erasmus Magazine
Dispute settlements in international investment law protect the rights of companies. However, they suppress the voice of local communities, as Stephanie Triefus found in her PhD research.
How the fast-track law could expose future NZ governments to expensive trade disputes
10-May-2024 The Conversation
Foreign investors wanting to protect their gains under the controversial new law could hold the country to ransom by threatening a dispute. As a result, they would constrain New Zealand’s democratic ability to exercise its sovereignty, and to protect te Tiriti rights.
Why people of Ecuador were right to keep the corporate courts out
29-Apr-2024 Common Dreams
In a referendum, Ecuador voted to keep its constitutional ban on using international arbitration and investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms.
Between sovereignty and corporate interests: what is at stake in the Ecuadorian referendum?
21-Apr-2024 Bilaterals.org
On 21 April 2024, the government of Daniel Noboa is holding a referendum in Ecuador to amend the country’s constitution and, in particular, to reactivate the dangerous investor-state dispute settlement mechanism.
After 30 Years of NAFTA, the Working Classes Are Still Losing
1-Mar-2024 The Nation
Thirty years after NAFTA came into effect in 1994, the economic data suggests a somber conclusion: The three countries’ working classes are worse off today than they were before
How people power forced the UK to leave the Energy Charter Treaty
27-Feb-2024 Global Justice Now
On 22 February 2024 the UK announced it will leave the climate-wrecking Energy Charter Treaty.
Honduras is fighting back against corporate colonialism
24-Nov-2023 Tribune
American billionaires are suing the Honduran government for blocking the creation of a libertarian city-state in the country. If they win, it will be a devastating victory for corporate colonialism over democracy.
Expiration of the EU/Morocco fishing agreement: Brussels and Rabat face legal reality
20-Jul-2023 Sahara Press Service
The EU-Morocco fisheries agreement, illegally extended to occupied Western Sahara, is due to expire on Monday with no negotiations in sight for a possible renewal, pending a final decision by the European Court of Justice (CJEU) at the end of the year.
Stand with the people of Honduras against corporate greed
30-Jun-2023 Public Citizen
We stand in solidarity with the people of Honduras and condemn US company Próspera’s $11 billion case against the will of the people.
Honduras advocates to defend its territorial integrity
2-Jun-2023 Prensa Latina
This is related to the complaint made the day before by government functionaries on the absence of legality in the litigation that the ICSID opened on the case of the Employment and Economic Development Zone (ZEDE) against the Government.