Cohen Proposes a Citizens Tribunal to Settle Trade Disputes

CWA President Larry Cohen was on the Ed Show on MSNBC to warn the nation to be vigilant, to fight back and to write to their Members of Congress to tell them to vote No on Fast Track for the TPP.

Cohen said one of the big problem of past trade deals like the NAFTA, CAFTA, as well as the U.S.-Korea agreement – besides hemorrhaging hundreds of thousands of American jobs in bad trade deals with low-wage countries – has been in the enforcement of the deals.

When multinational corporations want to enforce their version of trade deals they sue in secret tribunals – called Investor State Dispute Settlement, or ISDS – to get reparations of their profits from the effects of any law a government might pass whether to protect the environment, workers or their citizenry.

"There are 500 of those suits now," Cohen said. "Now, when we try to enforce a labor or environmental or a consumer provision, we have to go through our government to the other government and it literally takes years. I've been involved with that enforcement with Mexico, Colombia and recently Honduras. It takes years."

ISDS is a feature of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the biggest economic trade deal the U.S. has ever done. Yet, it's being negotiated in complete secrecy. Even Members of Congress have to depend on leaks to learn what's in the TPP. Cohen said many of the nations vying to be part of the TPP – Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Vietnam, even China, which is not yet part of the deal – couldn't possibly want ISDS in the deal.

"That's the U.S. Chamber of Commerce" that wants ISDS, Cohen said. "So, if our goal is to get Vietnam closer to us, let's get rid of ISDS. Let put citizen rights on the same level as corporate rights.

"We want to enforce this deal in the same kind of time frame that corporations are going to enforce their side. Get rid of investor state one-way lawsuits from the corporate world and put us on a level playing field, or give us Citizen State Dispute Settlement so that we can sue when workers are disadvantaged."