BEWARE THE TTIP MONSTER The upcoming election gives us a chance to Companies Can Sue Countries! choose the direction we want our society to Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) is a private court held go in and the government we think will best outside of the normal judicial system for foreign companies to sue the government if they feel new government policy will affect their get us there. But a new trade deal, TTIP, profits. This could be anything from an increase in the minimum threatens to undermine this democratic wage to environmental protection. However this only applies to process by giving foreign corporations more corporations - governments would not be able to sue corporations. In the wake of the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster in Japan power than our own government, and by in 2011 the German government decided to withdraw from nuclear putting our hard won labour rights and food power to reduce safety hazards. Vattenfall nuclear company who had been working in Germany sued the German government for 3.7 standards in jeopardy. billion as this decision would affect their profits.
What is TTIP?
Lower Standards!
TTIP stands for Trans-atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. It’s a trade deal between the EU and the US. On the surface it looks fairly innocent – aiming to make trade easier between the two regions – but underneath lie a range of worrying clauses that would undermine our democratic rights. Our political representatives are negotiating this deal on our behalf but at the moment it only serves the needs of corporations and not of ordinary people.
Groups including health organisations, food critics and NGOs are concerned that the quality and standard of food would be negatively affected by TTIP as food standards in the EU are much higher than US standards. TTIP also threatens to completely change the way small and medium sized farms operate, through the use of more genetic engineering and more hormone-treated meat.
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