One of the most contentious issues in the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic & Trade Agreement (CETA) negotiations is the inclusion in these deals of broad investor rights backed up by an investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) process.
Like NAFTA’s Chapter 11, ISDS clauses would allow foreign corporations to directly sue governments over regulations and policies put in place that supposedly violate “fair and equitable treatment” or are seen by corporations as “indirect expropriation.” Inclusion of ISDS in the US-EU TTIP agreement has been met with such widespread opposition in Europe that the European Commission has halted negotiations on ISDS in the agreement while a three-month EU-wide consultation takes place.
This Council of Canadians webinar (click here for the link) featuring the International Institute for Sustainable Development’s Senior Law Advisor Howard Mann, presents an analysis based on the latest leaks of the CETA Investment Chapter and Investor-State Dispute Settlement Chapter, and the implications CETA’s investment and ISDS chapters might have on public interest regulations and policy in Canada if CETA is finalized and ratified.
