While I have been more focused and aware of the TPP, there is also the TTIP which is a trade agreement between the US and the European Union that is also currently being negotiated.
The Guardian reports that the UK is urging the EU to reject the same sort of Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) that is at the heart of most peoples legitimate concerns about the TPP - ceding over a nation's or state's ability to pass any new legislation or regulation over foreign corporations doing business in their jurisdiction without facing the potential retribution of a "lost profits" lawsuit to be decided by an international arbitration panel.
As Public Citizen points out in the ISDS link, some critics feel such tribunals would be inclined to favor corporations over nations due to what is often referred to as "regulatory capture' where the same participants are sometimes the judges and sometimes the lawyers bringing the suits. See Profiting From Injustice
In addition, the cost of defending from these predatory corporate lawsuits in the tribunals is borne by the taxpayer/citizens of the nations being sued. The investor lawsuits, therefore are a lose/lose for the nation or state - even if they win, they still have the expense of their defense in the arbitration.
Per the Guardian, the MPs are making it clear that their responsibility to protect their environment must remain within their purview. Another MP includes "public health" as another area that must remain sacrosanct and and free to introduce new regulations as they become necessary:
A report by the UK’s parliamentary environmental audit committee (EAC) said: “EU states must retain their ‘right to regulate’, but a TTIP treaty text that enshrines such a safeguard will be meaningless if the prospect of ISDS [investor state dispute settlement] litigation produces a chilling effect on future regulation-setting.”
Joan Walley, the committee’s chair, said that once the trade treaty is signed it must include a guarantee that states could protect the environment with impunity.
“Any dispute settlement provision must unambiguously deny US companies any opportunity to sue us when we look to introduce necessary environmental or public health safeguards,” said Walley, the Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent North.
Now here is a simple question:
Is the US as committed as our European counterparts to maintaining our own national sovereignty in areas as important as the environment and public health in treaties dealing with international corporations that have to potential to be predators in search of "lost profits" when we attempt to implement new and necessary regulations? Will Europe have protections against us that we will not have against them? Shouldn't these same provisions be included as a matter of course in ANY trade agreement negotiated at any time with any collection of nations?
If the answer is no - our public coffers will be diminished, either in paying for the "lost profits" or in defending against the suit even in a victory, which costs will be borne by the taxpayer.
We need to make it clear, as the British and the EU are doing, that we will NOT be subject to corporate extortion if we choose to pass new and necessary regulation and we will also not be subject to the shakedown of having to defend ourselves if we pass regulation.