September, 07 2016, 12:00am EDT

As White House Spotlights Conflict With Democratic Presidential and Congressional Candidates by Escalating Toward TPP Lame-Duck Vote, Sen. Warren and Hundreds of Academics Urge Rejection
Economic and Legal Scholars Cite Multinational Corporate Rights to Unlimited Taxpayer Funds Via ISDS Tribunal System Named by VP Candidate Kaine as Basis for His Opposition
WASHINGTON
The investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) regime at the heart of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that would newly empower thousands of multinational corporations to challenge U.S. policies before panels of three private lawyersto demand taxpayer compensation is the target of a letter sent to Congress today by leading pro-free trade U.S. economics and law professors calling on Congress to reject the TPP.
The White House has escalated its efforts to pass the TPP in the lame-duck session, with Cabinet secretaries who are promoting the TPP crossing paths with Democratic presidential and congressional candidates campaigning against the TPP.
Last year, several dozen legal scholars joined congressional Democrats in raising concerns about the ISDS regime and demanding that a final TPP deal exclude the parallel legal system for multinational corporations. President Barack Obama scorned the critics, declaring they were "making this stuff up." Today's letter, signed by more than 200 prominent academics, including Obama's Harvard Law School mentor Professor Larry Tribe, warns that the ISDS regime threatens the rule of law and undermines our nation's democratic institutions. The academics call on Congress to reject the pact because the final deal would greatly expand the ISDS regime.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) praised the letter: "Today's letter from top legal experts makes clear: ISDS undermines the American judicial system and tilts the playing field further in favor of big multinational corporations," Warren said. "This provision empowers companies to challenge laws and regulations they don't like, with friendly corporate lawyers instead of judges deciding their disputes. Congress should not approve a TPP agreement that includes ISDS."
Tribe, Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, former California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso, and Columbia University Professor and UN Senior Adviser Jeffrey Sachs are among the signers, many of whom have supported past U.S. trade agreements. The letter spotlights the danger of the ISDS provisions, which was the same reason Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine cited for opposing the final TPP deal.
The U.S. has dodged ISDS liability to date because past treaties have covered only a limited number offoreign investors operating here. Research conducted by Public Citizen shows that the TPP, which includes Japan, Australia and other nations with more than 9,000 corporate subsidiaries in the United States, would double U.S. ISDS exposure. Nearly $3 billion in ISDS awards has been paid to corporations under U.S. treaties alone and claims worth more than $70 billion are pending.
Recent investigative reports by a Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist and a new Columbia Global Reports book reveal how critics have understated the threats posed by the ISDS regime, which - if the TPP is approved - would empower thousands more multinational corporations to challenge U.S. federal, state and local laws, court decisions and government actions before panels of three private lawyers. Under ISDS, the panel of lawyers can award the companies unlimited taxpayer money, including for loss of expected future profits. The decisions cannot be appealed.
"In recent years, corporations have challenged a wide range of environmental, health and safety regulations, fiscal policies, bans on toxins, denials of permits including for toxic waste dumps, moratoria on extraction of natural resources, measures taken in response to financial crises, court decisions on issues ranging from the scope of intellectual property rights to the resolution of bankruptcy claims, policy decisions on privatizations of prisons and health care, and efforts to combat tax evasion, among others," the letter notes.
The experts lament that despite the Obama administration's claims to have addressed growing concerns about the ISDS system, "the final TPP text simply replicates nearly word-for-word many of the problematic provisions from past agreements, and indeed would vastly expand the U.S. government's potential liability under the ISDS system." They fear that the expansion of ISDS in the TPP and in ongoing negotiations with Europe "threatens to dilute constitutional protections, weaken the judicial branch and outsource our domestic legal system to a system of private arbitration that is isolated from essential checks and balances."
This letter adds to a rising chorus of opposition to ISDS from prominent members of Congress such as Warren; the National Conference of State Legislatures; pro-free trade think tanks such as the Cato Institute; and hundreds of labor, environmental, consumer and faith organizations.
View the letter and list of signers.
What the signers are saying:
Jeffrey Sachs, professor of economics, Columbia University:
"We need trade agreements that protect worker rights and the environment. ISDS gravely threatens environmental protection and worker rights, and the rule of law more generally, as evidenced by the current lawsuit by TransCanada suing the U.S. government for $15 billion over the cancellation of the climate-wrecking Keystone XL Pipeline."
Cruz Reynoso, former California Supreme Court Justice andprofessor of law emeritus, University of California, Davis:
"The right of foreign corporations and investors to challenge U.S. policies which allegedly violate investor rights is a frontal attack on our judicial system."
Alan Morrison, associate dean, George Washington Law School:
"The United States Constitution simply does not allow Congress to assign the duty to assess the legality under the TPP of federal and state laws to the unreviewable discretion of three private individuals, instead of to our federal court system with full-time and unconflicted judges."
Lisa Sachs, professor of law, director of Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment:
"A multilateral agreement presents an opportunity to promote the rule of law, strengthen domestic judicial systems and ensure the rights of all, including the most vulnerable, are equally advanced. ISDS in its current form undermines each of those objectives. The whole system needs a rethink to better balance all stakeholders' interests and rights."
Kevin Gallagher, professor of economics, Boston University:
"ISDS accentuates the regulatory risks that characterize the latest trade and investment pacts by granting foreign investors far greater rights over national democratic decision-making. Putting governments and their citizens back in charge of settling disputes is the first step toward the comprehensive reform that is needed."
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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Groundbreaking TV Producer and Activist Norman Lear Dies at 101
"Anyone who ever had a chance to say something pointed or political in American television entertainment owes Norman Lear their adoration and awe," said TV writer and producer David Simon.
Dec 06, 2023
Actors and television and film producers were joined by progressive lawmakers, human rights advocates, and abortion rights groups in paying tribute to Norman Lear, the legendary TV writer and producer who ushered in an entirely new era of sitcom viewing to the American public in the 1970s, as his death at the age of 101 was announced Wednesday.
Lear has long been credited with expanding audiences' ideas about whether salient topics of the day like racism, poverty, and reproductive rights could be fodder for primetime television after his first smash hit, "All In the Family," was introduced in 1971.
The show, which ran for eight seasons and inspired several spin-offs, featured the bigoted Archie Bunker at its center, with his progressive daughter and son-in-law, influenced by the 1960s counterculture, frequently challenging his views.
"All In the Family" broke new ground by confronting Bunker's homophobia, his wife Edith's experience of going through menopause, widespread opposition to the U.S. war in Vietnam, and racism.
"Honesty about white racism was such a relief," reflected Maya Wiley, CEO and president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
As critic Ben Brantley said on social media, Lear "redefined what could be said and seen on television" and "made the uncomfortably narrow American mind the center of a sitcom."
Other hit series included "The Jeffersons," which featured an upwardly-mobile Black family and which Lear said he was inspired to write after members of the Black Panthers told him, "Every time you see a Black man on the tube, he is dirt poor." The family at the center of the sitcom discussed issues including alcoholism, interracial relationships, and classism. As Danielle Cadet wrote at HuffPost in 2012, the show "opened doors for future black actors, and its success proved that African American sitcoms did, in fact, resonate with general audiences."
"Sanford and Son," about a Black junk dealer who often butts heads with his more open-minded son, "mine[d] laughs in a setting that in real life had been torn apart over police abuse issues not long before, during the Watts riots of August 1965," noted the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. In "Good Times," a Black woman faced challenges as she raised her family in public housing in Chicago.
The success of Lear's series meant that "anyone who ever had a chance to say something pointed or political in American television entertainment owes Norman Lear their adoration and awe," said TV writer and producer David Simon.
The nonprofit group Abortion Access Front paid tribute to another series, "Maude," in which the title character had an abortion in an historic 1972 episode.
"We humbly aim to continue the legacy of smashing stigma and promoting the vitality of abortion access through humor," said the group, posting a clip for the episode in which Maude's daughter says, "We're free, we finally have the right to decide what we can do with our own bodies."
The show "broke many barriers," said researcher Steph Herold, not only by being the first sitcom to contain a plotline dealing with abortion care, but also by having "the first abortion plotline that centered the woman instead of her partner, doctor, or lawyer, the first legal abortion plotline."
"Norman Lear moved minds through the moving image," said U.S. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.). "His commitment to social justice ran through his work."
Lear founded the progressive group People for the American Way (PFAW) in 1981 and oversaw its advocacy on behalf of LGBTQ rights, freedom of speech, and other issues.
He later established groups that aimed to push for voter registration among young people, promote socially responsible behavior by corporations, and encourage the entertainment industry to educate viewers about environmental damage.
Lear was awarded lifetime achievement awards from the Producers Guild of America, the Television Critics Association, and the free expression group PEN Center USA, as well as a National Medal of Arts in 1999.
As Common Dreams reported in 2017, Lear refused to attend a reception at the White House to celebrate the Kennedy Center's decision to honor him that year, saying he did not want to mark the occasion at the home of then-President Donald Trump, who had slashed arts funding.
"I can't see myself visiting a White House, what [Trump] called a dump, that dumps on the National Endowment for the Arts," he told The Washington Post.
PFAW noted on Wednesday that Lear considered himself a patriot, and once wrote that he would not "surrender that word to those who play to our worst impulses rather than our highest ideals."
"That belief shone through in his work," said the group.
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'Apocalyptic' Horror in Gaza Called 'Total Failure of Our Shared Humanity'
"How is it that these atrocities are beamed across the world for all to witness, and yet so little is done to stop them?"
Dec 06, 2023
Humanitarian groups and United Nations officials expressed horror Wednesday at the disaster unfolding in Gaza as Israeli forces stormed the largest city in the southern part of the strip, fueling concerns of a repeat of the appalling destruction that Israel inflicted in the north.
Volker Türk, the U.N.'s high commissioner for human rights, said at a press conference that the "catastrophic situation" in Gaza was "entirely foreseeable and preventable." He noted that his colleagues on the ground in the besieged strip "have described the situation as apocalyptic."
"Military operations, including bombardment, by Israeli forces continue in north, middle, and south Gaza, affecting people who have already been displaced multiple times—forced to flee—in search of safety," said Türk. "But no place is safe."
Many had fled to Khan Younis from the north in search of safety, only to be told to evacuate again weeks later as the Israeli military closed in.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said earlier this week that its ground offensive now encompasses the entirety of the Gaza Strip, leaving the nearly 2 million people who have been displaced with no viable options to avoid near-constant Israeli bombing, shelling, and firefights that have prevented the delivery of critical aid, including medicine and food.
Virtually the entire population of Gaza is at imminent risk of starvation, the World Food Program has warned.
"The hunger war has started," one displaced person toldThe Associated Press, saying that Gazans are now fighting over dwindling food supplies. "This is the worst of all wars."
"Each day we see more dead children and new depths of suffering for the innocent people enduring this hell."
Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), said that tens of thousands of people are living on the streets of southern Gaza in makeshift and overcrowded shelters, heightening the risk of infectious disease. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East reported an outbreak of Hepatitis A at one of its facilities last week.
Hospitals are also overwhelmed and out of basic supplies, forcing doctors to operate on wounded patients without anesthesia and proper sanitation.
"Many of my own NRC staff members now live on the streets. One of them does so with her two-month-old baby," said Egeland. "Our colleagues in Gaza ask themselves a simple question: How is it that these atrocities are beamed across the world for all to witness, and yet so little is done to stop them?"
Egeland called Israel's "pulverizing of Gaza" one of "the worst assaults on any civilian population in our time and age."
"Each day we see more dead children and new depths of suffering for the innocent people enduring this hell," he added, calling for an immediate cease-fire. "The situation in Gaza is a total failure of our shared humanity. The killing must stop."
Israel—whose assault has been backed politically and militarily by the U.S. and other Western nations—claims its intensifying attack on Khan Younis and other areas of southern Gaza is aimed at eliminating Hamas strongholds, an assertion it has used throughout the two-month war to justify the mass slaughter of civilians and the decimation of large swaths of the Palestinian territory.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, a Geneva-based nonprofit, estimated Tuesday that at least 90% of the Palestinians killed by Israeli forces since October 7 have been civilians, contradicting Israel's claim that two Gaza civilians have been killed for every Hamas combatant.
Including the number of people missing under rubble and presumed dead, the human rights group said at least 21,022 people have been killed by the Israeli military since early October, when the assault on Gaza began in the wake of a deadly Hamas-led attack. The U.N. has estimated that nearly 70% of those killed have been women and children.
"The only way for civilians to be protected and for humanitarian assistance to be provided at the necessary scale required is for the conflict to end," Bob Kitchen, vice president for emergencies at the International Rescue Committee, said in a statement Tuesday. "The need for a cease-fire becomes more urgent as each hour passes, with more than two million Palestinians facing humanitarian catastrophe."
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The former president's remarks came as his allies are reportedly preparing specific plans to wield the federal government to target political enemies, including journalists.
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Amid mounting alarm over his authoritarian ambitions for a second term, former President Donald Trump said during a Fox News town hall on Tuesday that he would be a dictator only on "day one," pledging to unilaterally close the U.S.-Mexico border and accelerate fossil fuel drilling.
Trump's remarks came in response to a question from host Sean Hannity, who asked the former president if he would promise to never "abuse power as retribution against anybody."
"Except for day one," Trump replied. "I want to close the border and I want to drill, drill, drill... We're closing the border and we're drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I'm not a dictator."
"The moment for resisting Trump is right now, not waiting until January 21, 2025."
President Joe Biden's 2024 campaign immediately highlighted Trump's comments, posting a clip on social media and saying in a statement that the former president "has been telling us exactly what he will do if he's reelected."
"Tonight he said he will be a dictator on day one," said Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez. "Americans should believe him."
Trump's remarks Tuesday were just the latest evidence that the former president is preparing to aggressively wield executive power and arms of the federal government to pursue a far-right agenda and target his political enemies if he wins another White House term next year.
The Washington Postreported last month that Trump and his allies "have begun mapping out specific plans for using the federal government to punish critics and opponents... with the former president naming individuals he wants to investigate or prosecute and his associates drafting plans to potentially invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office to allow him to deploy the military against civil demonstrations."
"Much of the planning for a second term has been unofficially outsourced to a partnership of right-wing think tanks in Washington," the Post noted. "Dubbed 'Project 2025,' the group is developing a plan, to include draft executive orders, that would deploy the military domestically under the Insurrection Act."
During a speech in New Hampshire last month, Trump promised to "root out" those he dubbed "radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country," a threat that critics likened to Nazi rhetoric.
The former president, who is currently facing more than 90 felony charges, also pledged that his administration would carry out "the largest domestic deportation operation in American history," revive the Muslim ban, slash taxes for the wealthiest even further, and accelerate pipeline approvals.
The New York Timesreported Tuesday that a Trump confidant who is "likely to serve in a senior national security role in any new Trump administration" threatened to "target journalists for prosecution if the former president regains the White House."
Kash Patel, who served as Trump's counterterrorism adviser on the National Security Council, said during an appearance on former Trump strategist Steve Bannon's podcast that "we will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media."
"Yes, we're going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections—we're going to come after you. Whether it's criminally or civilly, we'll figure that out," Patel said. "We're actually going to use the Constitution to prosecute them for crimes they said we have always been guilty of but never have."
In a column published Tuesday, The Philadelphia Inquirer's Will Bunch expressed concern about what he described as the lack of mass mobilization against Trump's 2024 presidential campaign, given his openly fascistic threats and behind-the-scenes planning.
" Trump is back, and no one calls him a demagogue anymore—because that's too polite," Bunch wrote. "The 47th presidency he envisions is tyrannical, even dictatorial—siccing zealous MAGA prosecutors on his political enemies and the media, pardoning 2021's insurrectionists, mass detention camps for deporting migrants, and calling out troops to put down protests, perhaps as early as his Inauguration Day. And yet he is all but guaranteed the GOP nomination, and an even-money bet against President Joe Biden next fall."
"As I write this on Monday night, '
dictator' is a trending topic on X/Twitter. It could be trending nightly if the too-silent majority of Americans who believe in democracy don't take a more forceful stand," Bunch warned. "The moment for resisting Trump is right now, not waiting until January 21, 2025."
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