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reformed ISDS


UN warned corporate courts could thwart climate efforts
Campaigners are urging reform of an obscure system that allows coal, oil and gas companies to sue governments if climate policies hit their profits.
UN reform needed to stop companies fighting climate rules: Nobel laureate Stiglitz
Multinational companies will increasingly file massive cases against host countries when climate change policies affect their profits, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said.
Compatibility with EU law is not real issue with ISDS
But legality should not be our main concern here. There are much better approaches to international investment and we should be considering them.
We the people reject ISDS. So why are our governments trying to expand it?
A permanent Multilateral Investment Court pushed by the European Union could make ISDS worse by scaling it up.
As the world meets to discuss ISDS, many fear meaningless reforms
ISDS lawyers appear to hold administrative positions within the working group and are represented in large numbers in the advisory bodies that have been established for the working group.
Sharpening clash as UN body reviews investor rights to sue governments (ISDS)
Advocates of ISDS (industrialised countries and lawyers from the ‘arbitration industry’) dominate the running of the Working Group and its advisory bodies. Civil society is underrepresented.
Trump’s damaged NAFTA deal
USMCA bears many resemblances to NAFTA, which has been cited as a driver of low-wage corporate outsourcing.
Investor-state dispute settlement in Tanzania
Tanzania has embarked on process of regulation of its foreign investment regime by enacting legislation, which exclude international arbitration.
EU’s investment court may be bump in China’s Belt and Road plan
The EU has proposed to reform the investor-state-dispute-settlement system, a move that could further complicate negotiations with China over a bilateral investment agreement, as well as their dialogue on the Belt and Road Initiative’s implementation in Europe.
Keynote address by George Kahale, III
Combined with the dispute settlement mechanism of international arbitration, investment treaties have been transformed intol "weapons of legal destruction."
The limitations of the UNCITRAL process on ISDS reform
The UNCITRAL process runs a real risk of producing middle-ground solutions that will fail to address the fundamental flaws of the ISDS system and will only further institutionalise and re-legitimise the system.
More than 300 civil society organizations from 73 countries urge fundamental reform at UNCITRAL’s Investor-State Dispute Settlement discussions
More than 300 civil society groups and trade unions urged governments participating in United Nations meetings in Vienna to completely overhaul the controversial Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) system.
’New’ CETA tribunals - old undemocratic system
Our analysis of the leaked draft code of conduct of CETA tribunals reveals that the same people known as ISDS arbitrators and counsellors will now take over CETA tribunals.
ISDS reforms shove human rights under corporate red carpet
“We call on our governments to either address the real reasons why ISDS is fundamentally flawed or to abandon its ‘reform’ agenda that is designed to reinforce and re-legitimise a self-serving investment dispute system.”
Investment protection in EU Vietnam FTA
Vietnam and the EU have concluded their discussions on an Investment Protection Agreement, which they decided to keep it separate from their free trade agreement.
Corporate lawyers hijack UN meeting, while civil society is sidelined
The takeaway from the UNCITRAL’s process for its so-called "reform" discussions is that lawyers making millions in ISDS cases are welcomed, while the voices of the millions of people whose lives are harmed by ISDS cases brought by multinational corporations are barely an afterthought.
EU’s new trade deal with Mexico promotes CETA-style investors’ rights while ignoring human rights violations by multinationals
A key feature of the “modernisation” process is the inclusion of a controversial investment protection chapter with the same characteristics as the one recently included in the Canada-EU trade agreement.
Multilateral investment court: Council gives mandate to the Commission to open negotiations
The Council adopted the negotiating directives authorising the Commission to negotiate, on behalf of the EU, a convention establishing a multilateral court for the settlement of investment disputes.