Surviving Capitalism (Not) : TTIP: debunking the business propaganda over investor rights

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

TTIP: debunking the business propaganda over investor rights

Click here to access article from Corporate Europe Observatory.

In the face of fierce public opposition to the granting of these extraordinary powers to foreign investors, business associations as well as lawyers who make money from investor-state claims have begun a misleading propaganda drive. Their strategy: to appease the public by downplaying the risks of investment arbitration and to divert attention from the fundamental problems of the system by publicly supporting the EU’s cosmetic reforms around the edges. Behind closed doors, however, they are lobbying hard to ensure that the reforms don’t go too far.

The article deconstructs ten claims used by the propaganda campaign to persuade the European public that the terms of the agreement are in the public's interest.