Online: | |
Visits: | |
Stories: |
Story Views | |
Now: | |
Last Hour: | |
Last 24 Hours: | |
Total: |
A multi-partisan activist group established to expose and resist US imperialism, corpora-terrorism, and the New World Order
Critics of Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal warn about arbitration clause | 19 Aug 2015 | When Australia began prohibiting brand logos and requiring grim pictures of smoking-borne diseases on cigarette packs, tobacco giant Philip Morris fired back using a novel tactic. It turned to an obscure dispute-arbitration clause in a 1993 trade agreement between Australia and Hong Kong to argue that the Australian government's new public-health law amounted to discrimination [!] and an expropriation of a foreign investment. That case, which is pending, illustrates what opponents of the Trans-Pacific Partnership say they fear most about the nearly completed trade corporate takeover pact: that it will benefit big corporations at the expense of consumers and workers. The provision allows multinational investors to sue foreign governments for expropriation and unfair or unequal treatment, giving them the ability to bring cases before a special, extrajudicial arbitration tribunal that is unavailable to domestic investors.