If you live in the European Union, please take a second and help stop ISDS (TTIP and CETA).

If you don`t know what ISDS is, watch this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSuIGKSm7z0

Stop ISDS the main reason behind TIPP and CETA. Subscribe under one of the online petitions against it like this one:

https://stop-ttip.org/sign/?noredirect=en_GB

It is far too important to ignore.

signed

signed too

Signed; although that video was somewhat biased and further research was required.

An example that changed my mind:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/09/15/345540221/philip-morris-sues-uruguay-over-graphic-cigarette-packaging


However I believe this case is a fair example of it being applied:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/vattenfall-vs-germany-nuclear-phase-out-faces-billion-euro-lawsuit-a-795466.html



It's worth saying to my knowledge neither of these cases have been resolved.

@Headlesschicken

I appreciate and encourage everyone to further investigate TTIP/CETA and above all ISDS. I just linked this video because it makes it easy for most to understand. I could have written a multiple page text with details, but given my prior experiences, I expected not many to read it.

The times when you could cite "Spiegel" as an independent source of information are long gone. Augstein is dead and the newsmagazine has been taken over by Springer, who (quite literally) represent everything the "Spiegel" once fought against. Its the prolonged arm of cooperate germany masked in a formerly investigative journalism image.

It is a common misconception to believe that the big energy multinationals have to suffer finacial losses due to the change of nuclear power policy in germany. Quite the contrary. A horrendous sum of 100 billion dollars is paid to soften the exit out of nuclear power for the power multis. This is a scandal in itself.
People are made to believe that nuclear power is economical competitive, cheaper than most alternatives. The exact opposite is true. Nuclear power is the most expensive power source for our societies. That DOESNT even include the problem of nuclear waste that will remain a problem for ten thousands of years with unpredictable costs for the enviroment and future generations.

Germany alone subsidised nuclear power multinationals with 304 billion dollars from 1950 to now. Every kWh of nuclear power is subsidized with 4.3 cent. For comparison, the Renewable Energy Law in germany subsidizes alternative regenerating power only with 2 cent per kWh.

https://www.greenpeace.de/sites/www.greenpeace.de/files/Atomsubventionsstudie_Update_2010_01_2.pdf

There is nothing to complain for Vattenfall and any other Energy multinationals when it comes to nuclear power in germany, it should be the other way around. And yet ISDS opens exactly that door. Its a good example of how disastrous ISDS really is for our democratic societies and how much it will shape the world towards a new world order, in which multinational companies will be unrestricted in their exploitation of ressources, people and enviroment, social achievements will be reversed and democracies will have no more tools at hand for reasonable policy making in favor of their population.

You really cant overstretch the dangers of ISDS and the importance of fighting it before we have to suffer the consequences on a broad scale.

While I think much of what you said is overly exaggerated, I take your point and that's the reason I signed up to the petition.

In reference to your Spiegel views, they sound wildly speculative and would require too much time for me to corroborate since I hardly ever read newspapers, especially German ones.

If what you say is true about nuclear power policy in Germany then that would certainly alter my opinion on the matter but really I'm not interested in specific examples so much as the overall effect ISDS would have on European society. In regards to nuclear power being cheaper; I've never been under that illusion, I thought it was well known it was an expensive source of energy (otherwise coal/oil/gas would be used nowhere near as widely). Nuclear waste also isn't an issue as long as it is properly secured; however I digress. Since this case has not been resolved it can't really be used as an example of an ill application of ISDS which is detrimental to society, perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned it.

The thing about the Uruguay case that altered my views was that it had to be bank rolled by the mayor of New York in order to match the financial power that the company suing it had. And clearly by the amount that Philip Morris are investing in the case, they have a good shot of winning compensation for potential lost profits, and that this would set a worrying precedent.


Ultimately I think companies should be afforded a right to attempt to recuperate on investments made by suing the government, but only to the extent that they could recover their original investment not on potential profits (so bankruptcy could be avoided). Also such things should be made public and juries independently decided. However it's clear to me that ISDS doesn't reflect my views in the slightest so I say it would be a mistake for Europe to further extend the range of companies able to use it.

I should watch the news more often. Did not even know about this. That, or aforementioned evil corporates paid off the news. I'm not sure how I feel about all this though, so I'll simply take the food for thought and remain informed of the progress of these propositions ( like any good citizen should ).

Signed.

It'll do to Europe what NAFTA did to the US in the 1990s, except a bit worse.

Headless Chicken, the 100 billion dollars is the only part that seems to be exaggerated, as I've seen numbers close to half that over the next 5-10 years. The idiocy of it is that a new coal plant is being/has been opened in Berlin to compensate for the increasing energy consumption despite the fact that coal is dirty and more expensive than ever, the brilliance of it all...

Signed.

"coal is dirty and more expensive than ever"
coal is not more expensive than ever, the price is actually very low at the moment.
it's true that its dirty, but its the cheapest energy source we have at the moment.

ISDS and the EU has to stop existing.

Coal may not be at its peak price of '08, but several studies suggest that coal will reach its peak production in the next 5 years and that countries investing in coal now are going to pay up later. Also, for Germany coal was expensive because the coalmines in Germany needed to be subsidized to stay competitive. After they closed down a large number of them to cut spending the coal prices spiked and Germany became more dependent on foreign energy.

Not to mention that we should really be switching over to more green energy, but hydro-dams and geo-thermal power plants also change the environment. In the case of hydro-dams they can have devestating impacts on the environment (check out Mekong in Vietnam and northwestern Mexico for good examples).

Saving the economy at the expense of the environment is a fools errand. Bringing down the EU is just as foolish, it's the only reason Europe survived the recession (if you call what we're doing surviving).

Nothing is exaggerated. And you can read german taisho, so you could have easily checked out the link of the study and looked for yourself.

Förderwert ab 2011: Summe 2:Budgetwirksame Förderungen (Finanzhilfen+Steuervergünstigungen) + Budgetunabhängige staatliche Regelungen (u.a. Emmissionshandel) > 99,9 Milliarden Euro.

Eww, energy influenced politics.

No-brainer. Signed.

@myhandisonfire

i may can copy your original post 1:1 to share the topic?

@Master HFG : Of course. Sharing is the idea of it.

Latest developments:

the French government has announced it will not sign the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreement if the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism is included in the text. This, along with the incoming EU president Juncker hinting that it might be possible to jettison ISDS to make TTIP more palatable are signs of real weakness within the TTIP camp. David Cameron senses it and used a column in Monday’s Guardian to try to rally his troops, and shore up fast fading support for the deal.

- See more at: http://www.wdm.org.uk/trade/ttip-trouble-we-need-stop-all-it-not-just-bits-it#sthash.1hGrj0TH.dpuf

Woop! Down with the Tories! This sort of behaviour makes me exceedingly glad we still have Scotland in the Union.



http://www.euractiv.com/sections/trade-industry/commission-swamped-150000-replies-ttip-consultation-303681


That pie-chart indicates just how out of step they are with the British public.

Edited 11/18/2014 23:09:57

Who's going to take political views from poultry?

I'd sooner take political advice from headless poultry than the Tories, they're the British version of the Tea Party...