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Comment by olefoo | Hacker News Reader

This is why it's important to prevent fast-track legislation that would allow for congress to pass this on an up and down vote with little or no public scrutiny of the actual text of the treaty.

It's a power grab, pure and simple. It's kind of bold to be undermining state sovereignty, but other than that it's your standard attempt to tilt the playing field.

Also, what if one of these three-judge panels gets asked to rule on the legality of debt-slavery? What are the limits these panels operate under?

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Analysis of the WH response to Warren's OpEd, http://www.foe.org/news/blog/2015-02-tall-tales-of-the-tpp

"The wealthy enjoy greater procedural rights. The U.S. Model BIT and the leaked TPP investment chapter provide greater procedural rights for foreign investors than U.S. investors enjoy. For example, they get to pick one of the arbitrators.

.. A separate “court” for foreign capital is established. Foreign investors would be able to bypass domestic courts and bring suit before special international tribunals designed to encourage international investment.

.. Tribunal arbitrators typically have a pro-corporate bias. Arbitrators in these cases are typically international commercial lawyers who may alternately serve as arbitrators one day and return as corporate counsel the next ..

.. Crippling awards of money damages chill regulatory initiatives and put pressure on governments to settle.

.. These models bear little resemblance to property rights and substantive due process protections in the U.S. Constitution or the legal traditions of other countries .."

Further, how could so many TPP/TTIP countries choose (vote?) multiple panels of "international judges" that could override the decisions of "national judges"? That seems even harder than picking judges for a nation's Supreme Court, a process which has been through decades to centuries of constitutional law debate and debugging.

Sometimes it is amazing how little Congress understands what they pass. Just look at the "Patriot" act.

Gee, the majority here was all in favor of the FCC doing things without public review, why the sudden change of heart?

When will people here realize that ANY new law, regulation, or such, should be fully made in the public. Apparently the price of silence is promises of cable internet providers getting taken to the woodshed

FCC rulings can be overruled via congress or by the FCC itself in the future.

It takes an act of God to overturn a treaty.

Not at all. For one thing, trade pacts aren't "treaties" anymore, in the Constitutional sense. They're "Congressional-Executive Agreements", which our trade partners take seriously enough to consider our obligations fulfilled.

Thus Congress can abridge any trade pact with a majority vote and the President's signature.

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