{"id":148993,"date":"2015-05-05T22:19:26","date_gmt":"2015-05-05T22:19:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=148993"},"modified":"2015-05-07T01:19:42","modified_gmt":"2015-05-07T01:19:42","slug":"un-lawyer-calls-ttp-ttip-a-dystopian-future-in-which-corporations-and-not-democratically-elected-governments-call-the-shots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/un-lawyer-calls-ttp-ttip-a-dystopian-future-in-which-corporations-and-not-democratically-elected-governments-call-the-shots\/","title":{"rendered":"UN Lawyer Calls TTP & TTIP ‘a dystopian future in which corporations and not democratically elected governments call the shots’"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/b>Eric Zuesse<\/span><\/p>\n

(RINF<\/a>) – The Obama-proposed international-trade deals, if passed into law, will lead to “a dystopian future in which corporations and not democratically elected\u00a0governments call the shots,\u201d<\/span><\/a> says Alfred De Zayas, the UN\u2019s Special Rapporteur on Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order.<\/span><\/p>\n

These two mammoth trade-pacts, one (TTIP) for Atlantic nations, and the other (TTP) for Pacific nations excluding China (since Obama is against China), would transfer regulations of corporations to corporations themselves, and away from democratically elected governments. Regulation of working conditions and of the environment, as well as of product-safety including toxic foods and poisonous air and other consumer issues, would be placed into the hands of panels whose members will be appointed by large international corporations. Their decisions will remove the power of democratically elected governments to control these things. \u201cRed tape\u201d that\u2019s imposed by elected national governments would be eliminated \u2013 replaced by the international mega-corporate version.<\/span><\/p>\n

De Zayas was quoted in Britain\u2019s Guardian<\/i> on May 4th as saying also that, “The bottom line is that these agreements must be revised, modified or terminated,\u201d<\/span><\/a> because they would vastly harm publics everywhere, even though they would enormously benefit the top executives of corporations by giving them control as a sort of corporate-imposed world government, answerable to the people who control those corporations.<\/span><\/p>\n

Obama is pushing for international cartels to replace important functions of today\u2019s national governments, and De Zayas is saying that, \u201cWe don\u2019t want an international order akin to post-democracy or post-law.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

De Zayas told the Guardian<\/i> that the panels that are proposed to be at the very center of these trade-pacts “constitute an attempt to escape the jurisdiction of national\u00a0courts and bypass the obligation of all states to ensure that all legal cases are tried before independent tribunals\u00a0that are public, transparent, accountable and appealable.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That is, in fact, the motivation behind these deals.<\/a><\/span>\u00a0Costs get transferred from corporations onto consumers, workers, and the environment, while profits are increased for the corporation’s investors, and CEO pay will soar. In fact,\u00a0the EU\u2019s own study of the economic impact of the TTIP with America<\/span><\/a>, calculated “economic gains as a whole for the EU (\u00e2\u201a\u00ac119 billion a year)\u00a0and US (\u00e2\u201a\u00ac95 billion a year). This translates to an extra \u00e2\u201a\u00ac545 in disposable income\u00a0each\u00a0year for a family of 4 in the EU, on average, and \u00e2\u201a\u00ac655 per family in the US. \u2026 Income gains are a result of increased trade. EU exports to the US would go up by\u00a028%, equivalent to an additional \u00e2\u201a\u00ac187 billion worth of exports of EU\u00a0goods and\u00a0services. Overall, total exports would increase 6% in the EU and 8% in the US.\u201d According to the analysis, no one would lose anything. For example, tariffs would be reduced but income taxes and other taxes that the public pays wouldn\u2019t be increased in order to make up for that loss of income to the state from reduced tariffs. Not at all. Instead: \u201cAs much as 80% of the total potential gains come from cutting costs imposed by bureaucracy\u00a0and regulations, as well as from liberalising trade in services and\u00a0public\u00a0procurement.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In other words: government regulations of product-safety and the environment and workers\u2019 rights are a terrible waste, which would be eliminated and handled more efficiently by letting international corporations themselves handle those things, according to the EU\u2019s study. And \u201cliberalising trade in services and public procurement\u201d would cut \u201cred tape\u201d that has prevented government officials who are the purchasers in \u201cpublic procurement\u201d from getting high-paid corporate directorships, etc. under the existing regulatory structures in democratic nations where the public, the voters, can hold their own government accountable for such corruption. If these functions become the domain of the international corporations themselves, then existing regulations and the government employees who enforce them can be eliminated. Accountability, in other words, is such a waste, for the inside investors in large corporations. They don\u2019t need it; they fight against it. They are fighting against it. They don\u2019t even want accountability to their own outside investors, who might want them removed from corporate management.<\/span><\/p>\n

The EU simply doesn\u2019t mention the downsides. And they also don’t mention that,\u00a0“Obama\u2019s TTIP Trade Deal w. Europe Would Be Disastrous for Europe,\u00a0Says the First Independent Study.\u201d<\/span><\/a>\u00a0That study wasn\u2019t paid for by the EU, so they just ignore it. (They even ignore that it found that America\u2019s international corporations would benefit even more from the deal than would Europe\u2019s international corporations, which is the exact opposite result than the EU\u2019s own study calculated. President Obama performs brilliantly for America\u2019s billionaires, even though most of them are Republicans.) The economist who did that study wasn\u2019t paid by anybody to do it. Occasionally, a study like that is performed by an economist. However, paid-for studies get far more publicity, because the findings are then heavily promoted by the sponsoring organization \u2013 after all, it\u2019s propaganda.<\/span><\/p>\n

On 23 January 2015, Britain\u2019s Financial Times<\/i> bannered, \u201cDavos 2015: Businesses rally support for transatlantic trade deal.\u201d<\/span><\/a> Attendees there would pop the champagne corks if these deals pass.<\/span><\/p>\n

David Korten at YES!<\/i> magazine, headlined on 15 April 2015, \u201cA Trade Rule that Makes It Illegal to Favor Local Business? Newest Leak Shows TPP Would Do That And More.\u201d<\/span><\/a> He stated, in common language, a recently-leaked (from wikileaks) chapter of the TPP, the treaty\u2019s Investment chapter. Key provisions of it are:<\/span><\/p>\n

Favoring local ownership is prohibited. \u2026<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Corporations must be paid to stop polluting. <\/i>[Yes: Obama demands that corporations possess an actual right to pollute! It\u2019s in the contract!! Ignore his mere rhetoric.] \u2026<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Three <\/i>[corporate] lawyers will decide who\u2019s right in secret tribunals. \u2026<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Speculative money must remain free <\/i>[of governmental regulation] \u2026<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Corporate interests come before national ones. \u2026<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Then, there\u2019s a sixth basic provision: to \u201cprohibit governments from requiring that a foreign investor be under any obligation to serve the host country\u2019s people or national interest<\/i>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And that\u2019s just one chapter of the proposed document. No wonder, then, why the billionaires at Davos are eager for Obama to ram this secret treaty through Congress. (Their people were in on the drafting of this proposed treaty, so Davosians didn\u2019t need Julian Assange\u2019s organization for them to know what the treaty contains. Only we do. And so now we understand why Obama wants to imprison or execute Assange.)<\/span><\/p>\n

In the United States, congressional Republicans are almost unanimously in support of Obama\u2019s trade-deals, but most congressional Democrats are opposed to these deals. President Obama doesn\u2019t even enforce the workers\u2019 rights provisions in the existing NAFTA and other existing trade-deals.\u00a0Murders of labor union officials are prohibited under NAFTA but the Obama Administration ignores them.<\/span><\/a>\u00a0On April 22nd, Huffington Post bannered,\u00a0\u201cAFL-CIO’s Trumka: USTR Told Us Murder Isn’t A Violation Under U.S. Trade Deals\u201d<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and quoted an AFL-CIO official, “‘The question is whether USTR [Obama\u2019s U.S. Trade Representative, the same man who is negotiating both the TPP and the TTIP] considers murder to be a violation of the labor chapter. That is the question,’ she said. ‘The point is that USTR has informed us that labor-related violence\u00a0does not constitute an actionable violation of the labor provisions [of NAFTA]\u2019.” Obama relies almost entirely upon congressional Republicans for support of his proposed trade-deals, and of his existing trade-policies (such as non-enforcement of NAFTA). The only real question is whether congressional Democrats will be able to block his deals. When American voters in 2014 elected Republicans to majorities in both houses, the result was to ease the way for passage of Obama\u2019s proposed international-trade deals. Harry Reid controlled the Senate and blocked them<\/span><\/a>, but he was now replaced by the Republican Mitch McConnell, who is trying to win Senate approval for the TTIP. Reid, now as the Minority Leader, is still doing the best he can to block that; he just doesn\u2019t have the power he did when he was Majority Leader.<\/span><\/p>\n

Within the general American public, however, there seems to be more support for the TTIP among Democrats than among Republicans. On 9 April 2014, Pew Research Center issued a poll that was sponsored by the pro-deal Bertlelsmann Foundation, headlined \u201cSupport in Principle for U.S.-EU Trade Pact,\u201d<\/span><\/a> and the poll\u2019s key question was: \u201cQ3 As you may know, the U.S. and the EU are negotiating a free trade agreement called the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP. Do you think this trade agreement will be a good thing for our country or a bad thing?\u201d In the United States, 53% of respondents marked \u201cGood thing,\u201d 20% marked \u201cBad thing,\u201d and 14% marked \u201cHaven\u2019t heard enough.\u201d (Most of the others marked \u201cDon\u2019t know.\u201d) Whereas 53% of all respondents said \u201cGood thing,\u201d 60% of Democratic respondents did, but only 44% of Republican ones did.<\/span><\/a> That\u2019s a 16% difference \u2013 substantial. Thus, apparently, at least as of a year ago, when a member of the public heard \u201cTTIP,\u201d the person mainly thought that it came from Obama (which it does), and that Obama is a Democrat (which he isn\u2019t, except in rhetoric, but members of Congress are different; they know that he\u2019s not, even if the public don\u2019t); and, so, Republican voters were far less supportive of TTIP than were Democratic voters. The general public judged the deal by the nominal party of the person who initiated and is negotiating it. This is why, whereas in Congress, Republicans almost unanimously want TTIP to pass, and most Democrats want it to fail, the situation among the voting public is in the exact opposite direction: overwhelmingly favorable to the deal among Democrats, but only slightly favorable to the deal among Republicans. On the other hand, all Republican U.S. Presidential candidates support Obama\u2019s trade-deals in principle and they only want him to speed up his getting other nations\u2019 leaders to sign onto to them \u2013 as if he even has the power to do that.<\/span><\/p>\n

If the TTIP and the TPP pass and become law, then historians will almost certainly remember Obama far more for those international trade-deals than for Obamacare or anything else, because of the enormous global political change they will bring. And Obama will then probably be generally regarded as the worst President in U.S. history, because he will then have done more to bring back dictatorship as the global norm and ended democracy, than any other nation\u2019s leader, in all of history, ever did.<\/span><\/p>\n

The evidence strongly supports Alfred De Zayas\u2019s statement, that these trade-deals would produce “a dystopian future in which corporations and not democratically elected\u00a0governments call the shots.\u201d His statement was alarming, but not at all alarmist.<\/span><\/p>\n

De Zayas is the chief UN official responsible for \u201creporting\u201d on proposed international-trade treaties. As the likelihood of Obama\u2019s proposed treaties passing has increased, he has become increasingly vocal about what their implications would be, for the UN\u2019s founding vision of gradual evolution toward a democratic world-government \u2013 something comprehensive like what is now being suddenly rammed through, but democratic instead of fascist, and thus more the opposite of Obama\u2019s vision instead of similar to it. On April 23rd, Reuters headlined, \u201cU.N. expert says secret trade deals threaten human rights,\u201d<\/span><\/a> and De Zayas spoke in far more measured terms, not nearly so direct. He said:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI am concerned about the secrecy surrounding negotiations for trade treaties, which have excluded key stakeholder groups from the process, including labour unions, environmental protection groups, food-safety movements and health professionals”<\/span><\/p>\n

———-<\/span><\/p>\n

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of\u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a>, and\u00a0of\u00a0Feudalism, Fascism, Libertarianism and Economics<\/i><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse (RINF) – The Obama-proposed international-trade deals, if passed into law, will lead to “a dystopian future in which corporations and not democratically elected\u00a0governments call the shots,\u201d says Alfred De Zayas, the UN\u2019s Special Rapporteur on Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order. These two mammoth trade-pacts, one (TTIP) for Atlantic nations, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":148994,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461,1622],"tags":[115,30,96,93,529,535,526,843,694,49,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-148993","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorials","8":"category-featured","9":"tag-barack-obama","10":"tag-big-brother","11":"tag-cover-up","12":"tag-eu","13":"tag-fascism","14":"tag-global-news","15":"tag-propaganda","16":"tag-tpp","17":"tag-ttip","18":"tag-usa-news","19":"tag-white-house"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}