This should scare everyone

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/sovereignty-at-risk-from-euus-trade-deal-uk-in-danger-of-surrendering-judicial-independence-to-multinational-corporations-warn-activists-29913334.html
I dont care where on the political spectrum you see yourself or what country you are living in the idea of corporations being able to overrule governments or at least force financial recompense from them when they make decisions for the good of the individual must terrify you. Some countries are already suffering - being sued for taking steps to reduce smoking, for deciding a drugs side effects are more dangerous while its benefits less and stopping people taking it.

One the old sci fi doom scenarios was society where corporations had equal or greater power than state governments - has it already happened? Is anyone going to claim this arrangement could be beneficial for the ordinary man?

It does look rather worrying at first.

May I point you to this part, sphinx, which should cover us:

Campaign groups in Britain are due to put their concerns to the Department of Business on Wednesday, while an Early Day Motion in Parliament, signed by MPs from all parties, calls for the trade talks to be frozen until the issue is resolved.

Last night, the European Commission and the Government insisted the deal would include safeguards to prevent misuse by corporations, thus guaranteeing the right of EU governments to “pursue legitimate public policy objectives such as social, environmental, security, public health and safety” without the risk of being sued.

BigAndy9 wrote:It does look rather worrying at first.

May I point you to this part, sphinx, which should cover us:

Campaign groups in Britain are due to put their concerns to the Department of Business on Wednesday, while an Early Day Motion in Parliament, signed by MPs from all parties, calls for the trade talks to be frozen until the issue is resolved.

Last night, the European Commission and the Government insisted the deal would include safeguards to prevent misuse by corporations, thus guaranteeing the right of EU governments to “pursue legitimate public policy objectives such as social, environmental, security, public health and safety” without the risk of being sued.

This would be the same European Commission that is trying to bring in a seed register so that it becomes a criminal offence to grow, share or sell any plant that is not formally registered with costs of registering a single variant reaching up to £3000. Their idea of legitimate public policy objectives include things like votes for prisoners and making it illegal to criticize the EU. Sure they would protect us from the big bad corporations but only on the occasions when the corporations were doing something they did not like - which would almost certainly only be on the odd occasion that it was something the man in street did like.

Sure they are going to hedge it around with promises and guarantees - but at the end of the day it is another huge chunk of sovereignty being given away and we do not have much left.

sphinx wrote:

BigAndy9 wrote:It does look rather worrying at first.

May I point you to this part, sphinx, which should cover us:

Campaign groups in Britain are due to put their concerns to the Department of Business on Wednesday, while an Early Day Motion in Parliament, signed by MPs from all parties, calls for the trade talks to be frozen until the issue is resolved.

Last night, the European Commission and the Government insisted the deal would include safeguards to prevent misuse by corporations, thus guaranteeing the right of EU governments to “pursue legitimate public policy objectives such as social, environmental, security, public health and safety” without the risk of being sued.

This would be the same European Commission that is trying to bring in a seed register so that it becomes a criminal offence to grow, share or sell any plant that is not formally registered with costs of registering a single variant reaching up to £3000.  Their idea of legitimate public policy objectives include things like votes for prisoners and making it illegal to criticize the EU.  Sure they would protect us from the big bad corporations but only on the occasions when the corporations were doing something they did not like - which would almost certainly only be on the odd occasion that it was something the man in street did like.

Sure they are going to hedge it around with promises and guarantees - but at the end of the day it is another huge chunk of sovereignty being given away and we do not have much left.

Well we all know what the end goal is - some in the EU have made that very clear while others closer to home have tried very much to hide it from us.

You think that is bad! Signed a petition from SumOfUs back at the beginning of December.



I've just found out that governments from the United States to Australia and from Canada to Japan are secretly negotiating a trade deal that will give global corporations the right to sue our governments and overturn our laws.

Details have leaked out on what is called the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) that will massively expand the power of corporations to sue our governments.

Thousands of corporate lobbyists are helping to write these secret pacts -- but we're not allowed to see them. Governments know that we won't like these corporate power grabs, so they're hoping to keep them under the radar until it's too late to stop them. But if we can raise our voices now, we can expose these corporate charters and kill the deals forever.

Can you please sign this petition calling on global governments to scrap the deal?

http://action.sumofus.org/a/tpp-lawsuits/?sub=taf

Sassy wrote:You think that is bad!   Signed a petition from SumOfUs back at the beginning of December.



I've just found out that governments from the United States to Australia and from Canada to Japan are secretly negotiating a trade deal that will give global corporations the right to sue our governments and overturn our laws.

Details have leaked out on what is called the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) that will massively expand the power of corporations to sue our governments.

Thousands of corporate lobbyists are helping to write these secret pacts -- but we're not allowed to see them. Governments know that we won't like these corporate power grabs, so they're hoping to keep them under the radar until it's too late to stop them. But if we can raise our voices now, we can expose these corporate charters and kill the deals forever.

Can you please sign this petition calling on global governments to scrap the deal?

http://action.sumofus.org/a/tpp-lawsuits/?sub=taf

Yep that is the US part of the same deal the EU is trying to pull - in fact the bad news for their citizens is they are much further along and governments are already being sued. From what I see they are trying to pull off a truly global lock down deal putting corporations properly above governments and they are doing by using already formed government groups such as the EU and North American trade block.

Like I said in the opening post our own personal political allegiances are irrelevant on this - we all need to fight this.

Agreed, which is why I joined SumOfUs ages ago, it gets things out in the open early, giving a chance to fight it.

Join SumOfUs

SumOfUs is a movement of consumers, workers and shareholders speaking with one voice to counterbalance the growing power of large corporations. Join us on our journey as we seek to make the world a better place for ourselves, our children and all who share our planet.

http://sumofus.org/


Kinda like a Union against Corporations running the World