Suing Governments for their Environmental Policy under International Law

Simon Lester Some folks over at Heritage have a new Issues Brief in which they argue for including an Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism in the U.S.-EU trade deal being negotiated right now.  In a nutshell, ISDS lets foreign investors sue host country governments in an international tribunal when they feel certain of their rights have been infringed. I’ve been critical of ISDS.  I do see the potential that such international rules have for protecting property rights, but I worry about other aspects of the rules.  One issue is that these rules protect the rights only of foreign investors.  Using Venezuela as an example, there’s an assumption that the courts there can’t help much with protecting rights. To some extent, ISDS is a response to that. So, if Exxon feels its operations there have been badly treated by the Venezuelan government, it can use the ISDS mechanism to have recourse to an international tribunal.  However, if a small Venezuelan dry cleaner is being subject to governmental abuse, it’s just out of luck.  To me, that seems problematic.  Focusing on the wealthy seems like a fundamentally unbalanced way to protect property rights. But beyond that, these investment obligations are not limited to protecting property rights.  There are much broader provisions that allow foreign investors to sue for, well, lots of things, and perhaps just about anything.  Here’s an example from a Canada-Barbad...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs