This post is written from the perspective of Australia, and assesses the risk of Investor-State Dispute Settlement litigation. And one has to wonder how well those cheery assurances of “Nah, the US is never a target of these investor suits” will hold up in practice.
Read more...Can China and Europe forge a pact to undercut the impact of the Trans-Pacific Partnership?
Read more...The BBC follows up on the billion-dollar Moldovan bank scam, and Naked Capitalism kicks off a new series on money laundering in the UK
Read more...The fallout from GXG Markets closure begins: Capital Venture Europe files a lawsuit
Read more...We don’t have the TPP text, ISDS is just as bad as it’s always been, and deals like this have been beaten before.
Read more...The refugee fleeing from the Middle East to Europe are a small trickle compared to the huge flow of people displaced globally by wars and conflict.
Read more...Who needs balanced trade? It’s time to challenge the premises of “trade” deals like the TransPacific Partnership.
Read more...Uruguay is the only country that has had any kind of public discussion about TiSA and its potentially game-changing implications.
Read more...A couple weeks back, the Electronic Frontier Foundation released 124 pages of emails obtained in a FOIA request, asking for any communications between officials at the U.S. Trade Representative’s office and corporate lobbyists. The emails are mostly requests to set up meetings or share information between USTR leadership and representatives from either trade associations (The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Telecommunications Industry Association, Coalition of Services Industries, etc) or corporations directly (Cigna, General Electric, Liberty Mutual Insurance, MasterCard, AT&T, etc).
But Steve Stewart, Director of Market Access and Trade for IBM Governmental Programs – in other words, IBM’s in-house lobbying shop – takes this relationship-building a step further. He enlisted USTR to help him get his company’s narrative out.
Read more...Was Star Trek wrong in promoting the notion that peaceful exploration is possible?
Read more...Why “neoliberal” is the framework that best describes our new, post 1980 form of capitalism.
Read more...How military bases cement US power.
Read more...Immigration could turn around Germany’s main weakness – its precarious demographic situation.
Read more...A nation’s hard power is based on its ability to coerce, while its soft power depends on the attractiveness of its culture, political ideals, and policies. This column shows that a country’s soft power has measureable effects on its exports. Countries that are admired for their positive global influence export more, holding other things constant.
Read more...Examining an excellent in-depth investigation by Reuters into global financial stability issues, and the role of tax havens in this giant game of pain and plunder.
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