Old trade deal wine in new bottle: U.S. model for Trans Pacific trade pact will generate investment lawsuits threatening the environment

5월 8일부터 18일까지 Dallas에서는 미국과 8개의 태평양 국가들의 협상가들이 지금까지의 무역협정들 중 가장 멀리 나아간 것 중 하나를 찾을 것이다.
USTR(미 통상대표)은 새로운 2012 미국 BIT에서 공공 이익 규정을 보호하는 진전에 문제를 제기할 예정이다. 불행하게도, 최근 발표된 문서를 보면 공공 이익의 진전에 관한 USTR의 레토릭이 거짓임을 보여준다. “새로운” 미국 모델의 BIT는 환경 개혁과 노동권 강제를 제공하지 않는다.
새로운 미국 모델 BIT는 공식 분쟁을 해결하는 과정에서 기업들에게 유리하다.

“새로운” 미국 모델의 BIT

2012년 4월 20일, 미 국무부와 USTR은 새로운 모델의 BIT를 발표했다. 2009년 Obama 행정부가 2004년 모델의 BIT를 검토한 이래로, 기업 대표는 3년 내내 2004년 모델이 개혁적 문구를 너무 많이 포함한다면서 논쟁을 제기하며 국제 투자의 가장 큰 권리를 위해 압력을 넣었다.
2012년 미국 모델 BIT는 “투자와 환경” 조항에서, TPP에 비준한 국가들과 투자 조약에의 당사자들이 환경법을 효과적으로 강제하는데 실패하지 않도록 확실하게 약속했다. 그러나 그 모델의 BIT는 국제 재판소까지 가기 전 국가간 분쟁 해결과 같은 의무를 강제하는 어떠한 메커니즘도 제공하지 않는다. “투자와 환경” 조항의 본문은 단지 다음을 제공한다:

• 환경 조항 하에서 발생하는 문제들과 관련해서 다른 정부에 상담을 요청할 정부의 권리


• 요청을 받은 정부가 30일 이내에 응답을 할 의무


• 상호 만족스러운 해결에 도달하도록 두 정부 모두 상의하고 노력

환경 조항에서 다자간 환경 협정(MEA)은 심지어 더 효과가 없다. 그것은 양쪽 정부가 MEAs가 환경을 보호하는 데 중요한 역할을 한다는 것을 정부가 인정한다고 명시할 뿐 의무의 수준으로 도달하지 않는다.
2012 미국 모델 BIT에 있는 새로운 노동권 언어 또한 빈 껍데기에 불과하다.
반면 2012 미국 모델 BIT 하에서 투자자들의 권리는 강력한 강제 메커니즘이 딸려있는데, 바로 금전 피해의 평가이다. 그 모델 BIT는 공공 보건과 환경 규제에서 기인한 미래의 이윤 손실에 대해서 외국 기업과 부유한 투자자들에게 비용을 지불하도록 강제될 것이다. 그러한 보상 지급은 많은 나라들에서 심각하게 압박이 되는 공공 부채가 되기 충분할 것이다. 예를 들어, 에콰도르와 아르헨티나는 지금 수백억 달러의 잠재적인 법적 책임에 직면해 있다. 이런 파산을 가져올만한 판결에 대한 공포는 개발도상국으로 하여금 불공정한 투자자들의 요구에 타협하고 환경과 공공 보건에서 후퇴하도록 강제할 것이다.

TPP 투자 챕터

2012년 미국 모델 BIT의 발표는 2012년 5월 8일에 시작되는 TPP 협상의 다음 단계를 위해 맞춰서 나왔다. 이것은 대기업이 국내의 입법부와 법원을 피하도록 하고 환경파괴, 건강 위험요소, 사회적 불의에 대한 책임을 피하게 할 것이다.
TPP 협상가들이 새로운 모델의 미국 BIT에 기반한 투자 챕터를 채택한 경우, 다국적 투자자들이 국내법이나 규제가 그들의 재산권에 광범위하게 영향을 준다고 믿는다면 그들은 정부에 직접적으로 소송을 걸 수 있다.
더 큰 실질적인 권리는 미래의 잠재적 기대 수입을 침해하는 규제에 대해 다국적 기업이 보상받도록 하는 것이다.
또한 다국적 기업과 부유한 투자자들이 국가와 같은 수준에 위치하게 한다.
국제 통상에 있어서 재산권에 관한 포괄적인 이론은 환경 옹호론자와 특별히 연관이 있다. 환경운동가들은 새로운 미국 모델의 BIT와 유사한 국제 투자 조약이 수 십 년 후에는 미국뿐만 아니라 전 세계에서 이러한 재산권 극단주의자들의 야망을 채우게 하는 수단이 될 수 있다는 것에 걱정을 했다.

다국적 자본을 위한 별개의 법정

새로운 모델의 BIT와 이전 NAFTA 방식의 협정 하에서 초국가 자본은 세 명의 중재자가 있는 중재위원회 이전에 국내 법정을 피할 권리를 인정받는다.
국제 투자 중재자들은 안정적인 재임 기간을 누리는 것이 아닌, 즉석에서 마련된 근거에 기반하여 각각의 케이스에 임명된다. 그러한 형태의 임명은 정치적, 경제적으로 강력한 사람들에게 비위를 맞추려고 하는 명백한 인센티브를 갖게 된다.
최악은 이런 시스템으로 인해 다국적 기업의 변호사가 한 케이스에서는 중재자, 다른 케이스에서는 원고측 변호인으로 역할을 할 수 있다는 것이다.
그리고 국제 투자 중재자들은 대중들에 의해 선출된 대표자에게 심사받지 않는다.
또한 때때로 중재자들은 특별한 주제의 문제나 특정 투자 요구와 관련된 국내법에 관한 전문지식이 부족하다.
마지막으로 국제 투자 중재 위원회는 국제 투자 조약과 관례적인 국제법 문서에 근거하여 결정을 내리는데, 이 문서들은 국제 투자의 촉진이라는 조약의 목적을 고려하여 해석되기 때문에 너무나 자주 상업적 이익이 공공의 이해관계를 이기게 된다.

국제무역협정에 있어서 완전히 새로운 모델이 요구된다.

USTR이 Dallas에 도착했을 때, 대기업들은 새로운 모델의 BIT에 근거한 투자 챕터를 위해 로비를 할 것이다. 환경, 노동, 가족농, 소비자, 공공 보건 조직들의 연합체는 Dallas에 모인 8개의 다른 태평양 국가들이 무역 협정과 특히 투자 챕터에 있어서 미국식 모델을 거부하도록 촉구할 것이다. 이미 미-호주 자유무역협정은 투자자-국가 중재에 관한 조항을 배제하는데, 그들은 다른 국가들이 호주를 따르도록 촉구할 것이다.

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In 2001 William Greider, the famed progressive journalist, wrote about the North American Free Trade Agreement’s investment chapter in The Nation: “Multinational investors can randomly second-guess the legitimacy of environmental laws or any other public-welfare or economic regulation, including agency decisions, even jury verdicts…NAFTA’s arbitrators cannot overturn domestic laws, but their huge damage awards may be nearly as crippling–chilling governments from acting once they realize they will be ‘paying to regulate’…”

In Dallas, from May 8 to 18, negotiators from the United States and eight other Pacific nations will seek to craft one of the most far reaching trade agreements ever considered. Perhaps the most controversial issue that the negotiators will debate is whether to include a NAFTA-style investment chapter in the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement. 

Leading up to the Dallas negotiations, the U.S. Trade Representative is heralding alleged advances in protecting public interest regulation in the  new 2012 U.S. Model Bilateral Investment Treaty. This is a template that encompasses U.S. negotiating demands for future bilateral investment treaties and investment chapters in free trade agreements, including the Trans Pacific deal.  Unfortunately, a close reading of the recently released text puts the lie to USTR’s rhetoric about public interest advances. The “new” U.S. model BIT would provide no enforceable environmental reforms – and no enforceable labor rights either. Like the “old” 2004 U.S. model for investment agreements, the “new” U.S. model presents a significant risk to the environment, local democracy, and human rights, just as Bill Greider described.

The new U.S. model BIT continues to favor corporations in the formal dispute resolution process. This bias is at the heart of investment cases brought under existing U.S. trade agreements.  For example in three cases brought under the “old” U.S. model, communities in El Salvador, Ecuador, and Peru are fighting for environmental justice against multinational corporations. The “new and reformed” U.S. model for international investment agreements would do little to prevent the replication of the Pac Rim, Chevron, or Renco cases.

The “New” U.S. Model BIT

On 20 April 2012, the U.S. State Department and Trade Representative’s Office released a new U.S. Model Bilateral Investment Treaty, concluding a process that dragged on for three years.  In February 2009, the Obama administration began a formal process to review the 2004 U.S. Model BIT.  The U.S. State Department and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative received testimony and consulted with members of Congress, major corporations, law professors, labor unions, representatives of state and local officials, and environmentalists.  Throughout this three year process, business representatives pushed for greater rights for international investors, arguing that the incremental reform of the language in NAFTA’s investment chapter included in the 2004 Model BIT went too far. Environmental, labor, and many state and local representatives called for scrapping the NAFTA framework altogether and replacing it with a system that gives greater weight to preserving the capacity of governments to regulate business and act in the public interest.

The whole process seemed to be designed to produce a classic Washington D.C. stalemate that would largely validate the status quo represented by the 2004 U.S. Model BIT.  And indeed, the 2012 U.S. Model BIT looks very much like the 2004 one, although there are some worrisome amendments related to “transparency” and “promulgation of technical regulations” that could give an additional advantage to global investors.  

First, international investors would be allowed to help set the standards for what constitutes barriers to trade resulting from the promulgation of technical regulations.  Second, new language mandates that governments adhere to strict “transparency” standards for the promulgation of regulations and adoption of other governmental measures.      

The 2012 Model U.S. BIT also includes new language in the “investment and environment” article, but the language is more notable for what it omits. It provides no enforcement mechanism, other than non-binding discussions.  The parties to an investment agreement, such as countries that ratify a completed TPP, are committed to ensure that they do not fail to effectively enforce environmental laws “through a sustained or recurring course of action or inaction.” But the model BIT provides no mechanism for enforcing this obligation, such as state-to-state dispute resolution before an international tribunal.  The text of the “investment and environment” article only provides for:

• the right of one government to request consultations with another government regarding any matter arising under the environment article;


•  an obligation on the government receiving the request to respond within 30 days; and


• An admonition two both governments to consult and endeavor to reach a mutually satisfactory resolution.

The new language in the environment article on adherence to multilateral environmental agreements is even more toothless. It states that the governments recognize that MEAs to which both governments are a party play an important role in protecting the environment.  This does not even rise to the level of an indepedent obligation to abide by such MEAs.

The new labor rights language in the 2012 U.S. Model BIT is also unenforceable and equally empty.

On the other hand, the rights of investors under the 2012 U.S. Model BIT come with a powerful enforcement mechanism: the assessment of money damages. The model BIT would allow foreign investors to sue for millions of dollars in taxpayers’ money as compensation for complying with public health and environmental regulations.

Taxpayers could even be forced to pay foreign corporations and rich investors for lost future profits resulting from government regulations.  Such damage awards can be large enough to severely stress public budgets in many countries. For example, Ecuador and Argentina now face billions on dollars in potential liability. The fear of such ruinous judgments can force a developing country to settle unjust investor claims and to back away from protecting the environment and public health, among other vital community concerns.

The TPP investment chapter

The release of the 2012 U.S. Model Bilateral Investment Treaty came just in time for the next round of the Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations, which begin on May 8, 2012.  Naturally, big oil, mining multi-nationals, and giant agri-business are demanding TPP investment provisions of the kind provided in the new model BIT.   This would allow them to sidestep national legislatures and courts, and avoid being held accountable for the environmental destruction, health risks and social injustice wrought by their investment projects around the Pacific Rim. 

Greater rights for multi-national investors.  If the TPP negotiations result in adoption of an investment chapter based on the new model U.S. BIT, multinational investors would be able to sue governments directly when they believe domestic laws or regulations, including environmental measures, impinge upon sweeping new property rights provided to them. The substantive and procedural rights of “property” are far more broadly defined in the new model BIT than in U.S. constitutional law or the legal practice of nations around the world, generally.

Greater substantive rights follow from, among other provisions, an overbroad definition of investment that includes the expectation of gain or profit. This potentially allows regulations that incidentally thwart multinational corporations’ expectations of future profits to be treated as if they were a government “taking”; similar to how a government is required to pay a landowner fair value for taking property to widen a highway. By contrast, it is very difficult for a U.S. company to use U.S. courts to challenge a regulation for reducing its profits, so long as there is some “rational basis” for the regulatory policy. 

A TPP investment chapter based on the new model BIT would also establish greater procedural rights for multinational investors.  The usual practice in international law is for claims to be arbitrated on a government-to-government basis, but the new model BIT would put multinational corporations and wealthy investors on the same level as nation-states. No similar procedural rights are provided to ordinary citizens, other than the occasional opportunity to file briefs as a friend-of–the-court.

 Such expansive theories of property rights in international trade law are a special concern for defenders of the environment.  Over the past two decades in the United States, a radical “property rights” movement has attempted to roll back land use, conservation, and environmental laws and regulations. They have litigated in state and federal courts.  They have lobbied Congress, state legislatures, and county councils.  They have tried to exploit the referendum process.  Property rights extremists achieved some successes in the United States much to the disappointment of environmentalists, but in general they failed to reach their goal of revolutionary change.  Environmentalists, therefore, are understandably concerned that the new U.S. model BIT and similar international investment agreements could be the vehicle that, over a period of decades, substantially fulfills the ambitions of these extremists, not only in the United States but also around the globe.    

A separate court for multinational capital. 

Under the new model BIT and previous NAFTA-style agreements, transnational capital is granted the right to circumvent domestic courts by challenging government policy before a tribunal of three arbitrators.

Unlike U.S. federal judges, international investment arbitrators do not enjoy tenure with employment security, which serves as a buffer against inappropriate political and financial influences.  Instead, investment arbitrators are appointed to each case on an ad hoc basis. Those seeking such an appointment have obvious incentives to curry favor with the politically and economically powerful. Worst of all, this system of ad hoc appointment means that an  international corporate lawyer may alternately serve as an arbitrator in one case and as plaintiff‘s counsel in the next, raising questions of conflict of interest or at least personal bias. 

Nor are international investment arbitrators subject to confirmation by the legislative branch, as judges are. Their background and values are not vetted by elected representatives of the people: they are not questioned about their experience and personal values related to the role of government in protecting the environment, among other key concerns..     

Arbitrators often lack expertise in the specialized subject matter or with the domestic law related to a particular investment claim.  They, nonetheless, are frequently required to judge these issues. The model BIT’s process for investor-state arbitration, unlike the usual practice in international law, does not require that domestic courts and agencies first resolve questions of fact and domestic law.  This raises questions about the basic competence of the investment tribunals, for example when dealing with challenges to environmental regulations with their complex scientific fact patterns.    

Finally, international investment tribunals make their decisions based on the text of an international investment agreement and customary international law, both of which are to be interpreted in light of the purpose of the agreement: to promote international investment. As a result, when international tribunals decide cases, commercial interests all too often trump the public interest

A totally new model for international trade agreements is required.

  When the United States Trade Representative arrives in Dallas to begin the next round of talks on the TPP, the big corporations will be lobbying for an investment chapter based on the new model BIT. If they are successful, it would open the door for the export to countries around the Pacific of the extreme right-wing property rights ideology currently at high tide in the United States.  

A coalition of environmental, labor, family farm, consumer, and public health organizations will strongly urge the eight other Pacific nations meeting in Dallas to reject the U.S. model for trade agreements and for investment chapters in particular. Already, the U.S-Australia free trade agreement excludes a provision for investor-state arbitration, and other countries will be urged to follow the Australians lead.

Categories: Advocacy, Blog, Economics for the Earth