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Comment by jimrandomh | Hacker News Reader

> They allow investors to sue nations over legislative and administrative rules alleging that they harm their profits.

This is much bigger than copyright. This is removing substantive power from existing governments and transferring it to a new structure. The fast-tracking should be seen, not just as evading scrutiny by the public, but also as evading scrutiny by Congress and by other legislatures whose power is being stolen from them. When you write your representative, you might warn them that this puts them on track to end up like the Queen of England: powerless figureheads.

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You imagine those writing this deal are giving away their power. I rebut with, if the government wasn't already a mouthpiece for mega corps, the deal would never be written to begin with.

Now that business owns government, it makes sense for them to start transforming it to a more directly profitable model.

The goal of those sections of the agreement are to force governments to treat foreign investment the same as if it had arrived from a resident.

The intent is to stop things like what happens in South America, where they look around, see an oil company sitting there that is majority foreign owned and nationalise it to fix a balance of payments issue[2]. Some organisations (like Philip Morris) will try to use it as a hammer, but that's because anyone can sue.

The US is already party to similar agreements - NAFTA being one. They've even got a standard set of terms for them [1].

First world countries with strong court systems already have these protections in place. This is aimed at other countries who don't have quite as strong a rule of law.

As for secrecy... Just because congress gives the President fast-track negotiation rights doesn't mean that the deal has to pass. It just means that congress has to have a straight up or down vote on it, without amendments. There will still be time to review and debate it.

Agreements are negotiated in secret. Can you imagine a trade agreement negotiated in the current US Congress?

[1] http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/188371.pdf

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrobras#Bolivian_controversy

Sorry, but I still prefer the current state of affairs than having secret pacts that diminish the sovereignty of my country in favor of big transnationals, that only look for themselves, justify everything with a "we only look after our investors interest" and don't know the meaning of morality. The Philip Morris - a company that sells products that kill people - case against Australia is a clear example on how bad things end up with this kind of pacts.

Most international agreements are negotiated in secret. When it's time for Congress to vote on it, you'll be able to chew over the terms. I have to say I'm really tired of the willfully ignorant memes around this trade deal, as if it were some unprecedented thing in history.

>The intent is to stop things like what happens in South America, where they look around, see an oil company sitting there that is majority foreign owned and nationalise it to fix a balance of payments issue[2]

This was normally done to channel the vast oil wealth into the country where it could help people rather than into the pockets of wealthy foreigners.

Call it 'fixing a balance of payments issue if you will'. Or, call it "helping the poor". It's both.

>First world countries with strong court systems already have these protections in place. This is aimed at other countries who don't have quite as strong a rule of law.

Foreign corporations will be able to sue the American government for lost profits under the TPP. This will undoubtedly be used to try and stifle new labor & environmental protection laws.

>Agreements are negotiated in secret.

Sure. When you've got something you desperately want to hide from the public.

"The intent is to stop things like what happens in South America"

... so the intent is to stop the people of economically poor but resource rich countries from having a say in whether or not they continue to have their natural resources exploited by wealthy foreigners?

That doesn't sound positive to me at all.

Yep. The risk of doing business in a foreign country is that your firm--at least for now--has no direct political recourse (excluding stuff like bribes) if that foreign country does something you don't like.

That should be built into the business model, that risk.

Oh please, Find me someone in the US that doesn't like the part of the US constitution that says if the government takes something from you, it has to be paid for. While I'm not particularly a fan of oil companies, they didn't just turn up in a country and start drilling wells without permission. Generally they were invited in by governments that lacked the technology or capital ot build a domestic oil industry. Countries frequently publish invitations to tender and it's reasonable for both parties to such contracts to expect the other side to deal in good faith. Oil companies do pay royalties on the resources they extract to the governments of those countries.

Now, I'm a lot more worried about the environmental record of those oil companies, but let's not fool ourselves that they snuck in and set up drilling rigs and refineries without permission.

> they didn't just turn up in a country and start drilling wells without permission

Permission from whom?

What an incredibly naive world view.

I'm well aware of the history of the US meddling in Latin America. On the other hand, many governments in Latin America have been over-eager to just blame external forces for their economic problems and attempt to solve them via expropriation. I still hear this argument from supporters of the Venezuelan government; you don't have to be a raging capitalist to think that the government of that country is catastrophically incompetent. Last time I looked they were nationalizing supermarkets.

>While I'm not particularly a fan of oil companies, they didn't just turn up in a country and start drilling wells without permission. Generally they were invited in by governments that lacked the technology or capital ot build a domestic oil industry.

Or, in South America, invited by the previous government, which was often an America-installed despot.

"While I'm not particularly a fan of oil companies, they didn't just turn up in a country and start drilling wells without permission."

Tell that to the people of iraq.

Really. So someone went in and started drilling wells without asking anyone? Go on, tell me who.

I was heartily against the invasion of Iraq, but trying to equate the two is just bullshit. This is a great example of why our politics are so dysfunctional - people just trading zingers instead of making the slightest attempt to be factual.

No, someone went in, paid off some local politicians and military leaders, who then went in and forcibly (read: murdered a few of them) locals and any opposition. Then underpaid some contractors so that there would be none of the pesky expensive safe disposal of waste. Oh, not to mention also had some militias shakedown workers when they protest a lack of pay, late pay or basic rights.

Think it doesn't happen? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M42ATZXmIKw

This is a video about the South African mining strike (which I agree was a clusterfuck). The conversation was about oil exploitation in Iraq. How can I take your position seriously when you just move the goalposts around like that?

My basic point is not that corporate investments are necessarily fairly run or favorable to poor people in a developing country. They're not, and if you read my posts here regularly you'll see I'm actually quite skeptical of corporate governance and market idealism.

On the other hand, one has to recognize that it takes two to tango; corporations buy things like mineral exploitation rights from governments, and ultimately the government of a nation has to be responsive to its population, notwithstanding the fact that many governments are despotic. This being the case, it behooves new governments reviewing unfavorable deals to renegotiate terms like royalty rates or lease terms (both of which happen all the time), whereas unilateral expropriation should be a last resort because it signals to any and all investors that the country in question is an unreliable place to invest, so you scare away ethical investors as well as greedy ones.

Well, the historical precedent here is actually Iran. And look how well things went when foreign business interests were given that kind of standing there.

As someone who has benefitted a whole lot from nationalized industries, I feel it would be immoral for me to deny other countries the same opportunity.

For me, the shareholders in an oil company are less important than the inhabitants of the oil rich countries.

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