[FONT="]Citing a [/FONT]
BuzzFeed News investigation[FONT="], a dozen senators urged President Obama to remove a controversial element of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the massive trade deal the administration is pushing Congress to ratify in the coming months.[/FONT][FONT="]The senators — including Sherrod Brown, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren — highlighted a private legal system contained in the deal that would empower foreign companies to sue the US government before a panel of arbitrators, often drawn from the ranks of corporate lawyers. Including this provision in the deal “means our country’s own public health, worker safety, and environmental standards, among others, are vulnerable to corporate challenges,” the senators wrote.[/FONT]
[FONT="]This legal system — a global super court known as investor-state dispute settlement, or ISDS — was the subject of a recent 18-month BuzzFeed investigation. ISDS is already enshrined in a network of trade and investment treaties around the world. It has become a lightning rod for criticism as more and more companies have used it to undermine democratically enacted policies or even
criminal convictions.
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[FONT="]The senators cited in their letter some of the key findings of BuzzFeed News’ four-part series. “Recent investigative reporting by BuzzFeed reveals the extent to which ISDS has become an integral part of profit-maximizing strategies for corporations,” they wrote. “ISDS challenges, and even
mere threats of ISDS challenges, have been used to secure extractive permits over community objections, to
get executives out of criminal convictions, and to exonerate managers connected to a factory’s
lead poisoning of children.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]“Such a corporate handout does not belong in our trade agreements,” they concluded.[/FONT]
[FONT="]The senators also disputed the administration’s claims that TPP would bolster national security.
