Colombia is defending its sovereignty from the facility of worldwide firms – #INA

Commerce offers can permit worldwide firms to trample over the rights of governments within the International South. That’s the message from the Colombian authorities, which describes the impact of such offers as a “massacre” for his or her nationwide sovereignty. And now, Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro has mentioned he desires to renegotiate the offers his nation has with america, European Union and the UK.

He has a robust case as a result of, within the final couple of years, the US and European nations have additionally been renegotiating related commerce and funding offers, as they attempt to stop themselves from being sued within the secretive “company courts” that these offers create.

Solely this yr, the British authorities withdrew from a poisonous funding deal, known as the Power Constitution Treaty, after a slew of instances during which European governments have been sued by fossil gasoline firms for taking local weather motion which supposedly broken the income of mentioned companies.

So the query now’s whether or not European nations are going to just accept that southern nations want the identical coverage house to take care of local weather change and quite a few different issues they face. Or whether or not they are going to demand these nations proceed to abide by these terrible, one-sided offers.

On the core of the issue, is one thing often known as investor-state dispute settlement or ISDS. In essence, ISDS creates a “company court docket”, which lets multinational firms from a commerce accomplice nation sue governments in a global tribunal.

These “company courts” have been inserted into commerce and funding offers because the Fifties, initially dreamt up as a means of defending Western pursuits in creating nations. They created a authorized system which might have made it tougher for governments which may wish to, say, nationalise oilfields owned by Western multinationals. So, from the outset, these offers have been implicitly neocolonial.

However as time glided by, the scope of those company courts was broadened by company legal professionals. At present, firms are capable of sue for just about any legislation or regulation they don’t like. Worse, these instances are sometimes heard in secret, overseen by company legal professionals who should not have to fret in regards to the affect of their choices on society, human rights or the setting – solely funding legislation. And these “courts” normally haven’t any proper of enchantment, and might solely be utilised by international traders.

As such, ISDS has been utilized by tobacco firms to problem governments which wish to guarantee cigarettes are offered solely in plain packaging. They’ve been used to problem will increase to the minimal wage and windfall taxes. However more and more, they’re getting used to problem all method of environmental rules essential to halt local weather change. In actual fact, they’re changing into a significant barrier to the local weather motion governments should undertake to maintain our planet liveable.

As such, Western nations are discovering themselves on the hook for a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} from firms, merely for exercising their democratic duties. Unsurprisingly, they’re revoking the treaties which have put them on this scenario. However they’re much much less eager on permitting different governments to take the identical measures. One rule for us, fairly one other for the International South.

The Colombian authorities has determined to name out this hypocrisy and take issues into its personal arms. President Petro has mentioned permitting firms to settle disputes exterior nationwide courts ought to by no means have occurred, saying as an alternative Colombia is compelled “to place ourselves within the mouth of the wolf”.

He’s proper. Within the final decade, 23 identified instances have been introduced in opposition to Colombia beneath ISDS, many issued by international mining firms in direct response to measures taken by Colombia to guard the pure setting and the rights of Indigenous peoples.

Mining large Glencore, for instance, sued Colombia following the choice of the nation’s Constitutional Court docket to droop a proposed growth to what’s already the biggest open-pit coal mine in Latin America.

The Cerrejon mine has all the time confronted fierce native opposition and has resulted in poisonous contamination of air, soil and water provides and the displacement of 35 Indigenous communities from their ancestral territories. The Constitutional Court docket determined that the growth of the mine would severely affect the local people ecosystem.

Glencore mentioned the court docket’s choice was discriminatory, unreasonable and arbitrary, and used ISDS to convey 4 separate instances in opposition to Colombia. It gained the primary case and was awarded $19m, whereas the opposite three are nonetheless in course of for undisclosed sums of cash.

In a separate case, Canadian mining firm Eco Oro is claiming $696m in compensation when the Constitutional Court docket dominated to guard the paramos – uncommon, high-altitude wetland ecosystems that function very important sources of freshwater. Despite the fact that the ISDS system in query is explicitly supposed to ensure governments coverage house to guard the setting, the arbitration panel dominated that this environmental exception didn’t preclude the duty to pay compensation.

Colombia just isn’t alone. In recent times nations together with Kenya, South Africa and Ecuador have begun to exit this deeply undemocratic system. One of many first treaties Colombia desires to renegotiate is the UK-Colombia deal. Colombia’s ambassador to the UK has been clear in denouncing the deal, saying these treaties “have turn into a drain on Colombia and plenty of different nations”, particularly stating the facility they provide to the fossil gasoline trade to push again on local weather motion and sue nations “for not incomes what they meant to earn by polluting”.

However they are going to face severe opposition. Meaning they are going to want assist from residents and actions right here in Britain. Fortuitously, the commerce union of the very civil servants working within the UK authorities to barter commerce offers have already come out in assist of the Colombian place, saying “we want actual local weather motion”.

We should be part of them. ISDS is an arcane system, however lately campaigners have pulled it out of the shadows and begun to dismantle it in quite a few commerce offers. Seventy years on from when this neocolonial system first appeared, we are able to lastly defeat it. And if we wish to halt local weather change and construct democracy we have to do it quick. Colombia is now on the entrance line, and so they want our assist.

The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.