Oh, Canada: Surprise loser in US-EU trade deal | Hacker News Reader

Oh, Canada: Surprise loser in US-EU trade deal

politico.eu

25 pointswalterbell12 comments

So they are fearing that American cooperations can sue EU governments for unfair trade barriers, which then should be settled out of the ordinary.

I'm having two issues with that:

1. The US government is basically in the hands of those cooperations, so why not led the US government sue the EU government over those barriers? Go the legal way. Those barriers are typically based on consumer protection laws, so these are in danger. (privacy, health, anti-trust, illegal practices, warranty, ...)

2. Out of court settlements is too american and too illegal to me. We are not in a colonial world without international law anymore, even if the Americans still think so.

> Out of court settlements is too american and too illegal to me.

Court case can drag on forever. I think having more option is good unless there's a better way of doing this.

So we should have an alternative to the legal system?

I thought arbitration was an alternative to the court system. Though, I suppose, it is technically part of the legal system.

>When Brussels and Ottawa started negotiating more than five years ago, most politicians did not know what ISDS meant, and hardly anyone but a few legal specialists paid attention to this section of the agreement. > >That changed when Brussels started negotiating with the US in July 2013. A possible free-trade agreement between regions that exchange about €826 billion in goods and services a year, turned ISDS into a hotly debated issue.

Or maybe it was the leak of the previously-kept-top-secret TPP chapter in 2013 with a proposed ISDS mechanism that is an enormous political giveaway to corporations:

https://wikileaks.org/tpp-investment/WikiLeaks-TPP-Investmen...

The TPP and TTIP have almost nothing to do with free trade. It's all about giving advantages to multinationals.

One could argue otherwise.

The Eurozone is reminiscent of the 'Sterling Area'. The basic principle of trade local first, sterling area second and everyone else last. This is strikingly similar to the Eurozone today.

The EU basically puts the US down last as a large trade partner. China may be a big trader but EU/US trade is something beyond words.

TPP is something that seeks to wear down this 'last preference' down to get a better deal than the rest of the world.

Semi off-topic; what is the TTIP and why must it be stopped: https://stop-ttip.org/what-is-the-problem-ttip-ceta/

Appears the European Parliament agrees on the ISDS aspect. That's... at least something.

Oh? And I thought the losers were the ordinary citizens...

I always wondered why Canada will not get in to the proper trade union with Australia, New Zealand and Ireland. In such union none of the countries would lead, as both Australia and Canada are of similar economies, and New Zealand and Ireland also are comparable.

Ties with UK would be loosen up to get more independent and all countries in union would bring something amazing - location. Canada would be stop over for US market, Ireland for EU and Australia/New Zealand for Asian.

That would be the major countries from the Commonwealth of Nations (ex British Empire), which we already do for sports.

I think the bigger selling points are the shared similarities in Legal systems, Privacy laws, etc...

Surprise loser? I'd say surprise winner: now their citizens won't have large EU companies suing their government when it tries to, well, govern.

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