Celia Malmstrom – US Business rejects new proposals on ISDS.
By Tony Burke, Chair, Campaign For Trade Union Freedom
In a fresh blow to the announcement that the EU was to propose an “alternative” to the ISDS clauses in the TTIP Agreement announced by Trade Commisioner Cecelia Malmström last week the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has rejected the proposal.
Ms. Malmström proposed an ‘Investment Court System’ – a softer version of ISDS, to try to push on with the TTIP negotiations. The ISDS clauses have met with unrelenting opposition by opponents of TTIP and trade unions.
The new proposals were roundly dismissed within days of their publication and it appears they have failed to gain traction.
The U.S. Chamber’s Vice President for European Affairs Marjorie Chorlins issued the following statement on the announcement by the European Commission on their intent to adopt the Investment Court System – a new approach to the investor-state dispute settlement system:
“While we recognize the EU has a political problem relating to future investment treaties, the U.S. business community cannot in any way endorse today’s EU proposal as a model for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The recent European debate around investment treaties the obligations governments accept in them and the methods they provide for dispute settlement is not grounded in the facts, and the distortions in this debate cannot be allowed to trump sound policy.
If the EU still regards the TTIP as a serious objective, today’s proposal is deeply flawed. Tough negotiations lie ahead, and the reforms the United States has undertaken in recent years in its own investment agreements represent a far superior starting point for these important deliberations.”
