The Trans-Pacific Partnership

[Husar]

It's easier if answer both of these.

1) It is very hard to arbitrate between that many members bilaterally. Even if it weren't, it creates complications, because, in this case, a decision agreed between US and Chile wouldn't cover Australia. It would lead to weird result where the rules for trade between US and Chile could be different to Chile and Australia. So, Australia would either have to automatically abide by a decision reached without its input or involvement, or you would have to create another process involving US and Australia and Chile and Australia. Now imagine the chaos if the decision reached in direct talks between Chile and Australia is different than the one reached by US and Chile. And you'd have to do that for every single member.

2) Independent courts protect the rights of smaller nations in the agreement. What chance could Chile have against US in bilateral dispute? Practically none. Independent courts offer them assurances their right and interests would be respected within the agreement, and that the bigger fishes would dominate/abuse the agreement.

3) Those are not "secret courts". You don't know them now, but they will most certainly be public after they are set up.

4) Civil courts usually aren't the best choice to deal with that sort of stuff (international disputes). Letting them handle it would lead to a much higher chance of wrong decisions, it would be much more expensive and much more inefficient. Much better to set up a specialist court to deal with anything pertaining the agreement.

Eh, well, most of the information I heard, and most of it comes from organizations that are against it because the ones for it do not like to release any info apparently (not my fault), says that these courts will be operated by businesses, something like each party chooses a judge, one is chosen by the court-"company" or so and then they come to a judgement but the entire process is secret. Now you may tell me that this is not correct, but why is it apparently so hard to get info about what is correct? Why is all the info I get about it without searching like a madman the one that says it's a really bad idea? The courts may be known but each case will be decided by them in secrecy. We also know the Pfizer court, but can you name all the decisions and ensure me they were reached according to sufficient judicial standards? Is it enough to know that the court exists?

And why can't these courts be international courts such as the one we have for human rights etc.? These work fine, no? Convenience and expense are bad excuses, having a dictator is also more convenient and cheaper than having to vote every two to four years.
An international court could cover all trade between all the nations involved, but it should be run by the governments involved and not by businesses. I don't care if it's cheaper for corporations or governments to just let the corporations screw me over in biased courts.

And just in case this is exactly what they want to set up, why is this not properly communicated? Instead there are secret meetings and everybody who comes out says he is not allowed to comment on anything. You can't tell me that something completely harmless requires this much secrecy.

Oh and this is like the most official source you can get in Germany: http://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/ttip-167.html

Ultra-mainstream media and they cover the pros and contras:

+ investment protection
+ faster handling of cases
+ example for future treaties (for example with countries like China that do not have western-style courts)

- not transparent, cases can be processed in secrecy
- no appeals, once a decision is reached, it's final
- one-sided, only corporations can sue states, not the other way around, so if anyone pays, it's always the government/taxpayer
- limited legislation, because governments may not dare to release harsher pollution restrictions for fear of getting sued by corporations who claim it endangers their investment/profit

The last two are especially nice.