ISDS Case Map
environment
Chemical firm uses trade pact to contest Environmental Law
European Environmental Bureau position paper on the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)
Documents released by the whistle-blowing group WikiLeaks show countries negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) did not plan to sanction trading partners who break environmental promises -- an issue that has caused a rift between the United States and others in the bloc and is an obstacle to finalizing the deal.
Today, 15 January 2014, WikiLeaks released the secret draft text for the entire TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) Environment Chapter and the corresponding Chairs' Report. The TPP transnational legal regime would cover 12 countries initially and encompass 40 per cent of global GDP and one-third of world trade.
A court in Canada has ruled Ecuadorean farmers and fishermen can try to seize the assets of oil giant Chevron based on a 2011 decision in an Ecuadorean court found it liable for nearly three decades of soil and water pollution near oil wells, and said it had ruined the health and livelihoods of people living in nearby areas of the Amazon rainforest.
"The broad implications of the TPP are that governments would lose ability to put in place policies to address the climate crisis while corporations would gain the ability to challenge climate and environmental laws and policies," writes the Sierra Club.
Energy has not been making headlines in the context of these talks, but a TTIP will have far-reaching implications for the energy sector, e.g. with regard to oil sands, LNG and shale gas.
Will Munger, of Utah Tar Sands Resistance, said his group wasn’t trying to get arrested. Instead they were raising their voices against what they fear will be a trade pact that encourages the export of methane gas from the United States to other nations.
Ecuador’s highest court upheld a verdict that US oil company Chevron Corp is responsible for pollution in an Amazon rainforest, but halved the fine imposed in a previous trial to $9.5 billion, a decision the company dismissed as illegitimate.
