International Advocacy - Mevr. mr. drª Marian Aletta Does

Freedom Justice and Security - TTIPP and ISDS

Last week the European Parliament approved the Transatlantic Trade Investment Project.

In a post-agricultural society trade and commerce are the motor of prosperity. That is,

when the market is free in every sense of the word, meaning that it is the individual product

seeking client who decides which product to purchase, instead of that, by means of State

subventions and lobbies, certain products are simply placed without allowing the customers

a choice.

Who is the market, who are the producers and who are the clientele ? With the TTIP we

are talking about the American and Europe based producers and individual local citizens /

buyers.

The USA is a Federal State, with Federal law that, in certain cases substitutes or

overrules that of the individual States.

This is not the case in the European Union countries, who still are sovereign

nations, reason for which EU regulations require an implimentation procedure that

acknowledges the adoption of these regulations als State Law.

For an American producer to invest in any of the local European Union countries there

is therefore the hubble of respective nation state legislation subject to their national

judiciary system.

 

That is apart from the many, many different languages, cultures and customs incorporated

in their national law. This composes a risk thus high that the investor may not want to take.

In order to avoid these national hubbles, trade agreements are made between sovereign

States that may adjudicate certain trade questions to arbitration rather than to the respective 

national courts.

This means the application of international public law to resolve trade agreement disputes,

contrary to international private law, that regulates the application of respective nation State

law to different private individual cases. International public law, as established by different nations, in specific cases, such a in trade agreements, prevails over the application of national

law and private international law.

International Investors Dispute Resolution (ISDS) is the manner in which disputes under

the TTIP are to be resolved and funtions in the following manner:

Two advocates funtioning as arbitrators (one of the of investor and one the purchasor)

under mutual agreement nominate a third advocate/arbiter and between the three of them

they will reach an decisive agreement on application of the trade agreement law terms,

without taking any of the respective national legislation into consideration.

This decision therefore is not subject to national law, to be judged by a national judicial

system, but can be imposed against nation States.

So when a nation, - in representation of it's citizens - signs a trade agreement, all citizens

who have some matter to deal with regarding that specific trade subject, will have to address

a thus composed arbitration court. Not a national court composed of national judges.

Last week, the European Parliament approved the TTIP and ISDS clause, as described

hereabove.

 

Freedom of trade, commerce and industry is actually a rather new thing at this local level

of commerce. Some 35 years ago, most Spanish lived in an agricultural society. So did

the mayor part of the Portuguese, Romanians, Bulgarians, Greek, Italians, and, believe it

or not, also the Germans.

These people's lives were based on the produce of crops, raising cattle, goats, sheep,

chickens. The coastal villages would exchange their produce against the produce of the

more land inward villages. These youngsters had no time for scholing, and consequently

they hardly know how to write or spell correctly, let alone speak other languages.

Today many 50-plus individuals in these countries therefore have very little to no scholar

education, as they had to assist domestic economics by either attending the goats on the

hills; aid with the timely harvesting of the crops, or the salting of the fish/repairing of the

fishing nets.

I'm not implicating that these people are not intelligent, to the contrary, they simply had

no chance to develop in certain areas.

Upon entry of these countries in the European Union, and the heavily subsidised cutting

off of the agricultural and fishing industries, many of these agricultural industries ceased

to exist, as the EU started subsidising these industries in Northern African countries,

paying off those who were willing to get bought out to put their fishing fleets down,

shut their farms, etc.

With other words, the economic system of the agricultural states, based mainly on 

exchange & commerce of food production on which the southern european countries

economies thrived for thousands of years was aniquilated / bought off by Brussels.

But those whose lives were based on attending the goats on the countryside hills, those

who would be on their small fishing boats, and those who would be plucking a chicken

to be cooked for dinner, didn't change.

 

No that is not correct; their lives did changed in 2 ways, 1. unemployment

and  2. food is not to be produced - but to be purchased in a store.

Nor was there any real reinvestment for that matter apart from, - in Spain - by bank

mortgages heavily financed urbanizations projects, from which most were too rapidly

build, largely without the necessary licences, by unskilled labour, subject to

devastation and many, many conflicts.

These countrymen who grew up in an agricultural economy, with today few teeth in

their mouths, speaking in their local dialect and entirely ignorant of what happens in

the larger part of the world, with a general unemployment rate of 25%, but in certain

local areas up to 60% , form the larger part of the population of the nations now

entering into the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Project.

So how is this going to work in the European Union, which incidently has nothing to

do with any kind of economic nor social union between the people of these different

states. Please kindly note that the European Union is not a Federal Union of States,

as the United States of America.

The dutch, generally spoken 'can't see' the germans (2 world wars); the portuguese

dispise the spanish; the spanish loath the french; the latter, the italians and the irish

the english. 
 

And they all speak their own language, live in sovereign nation states, with their

own jurisdictions, laws, judiciary and Justice system.

So how will EU - Freedom, Justice and Security fit in with the TTIP and ISDS?

Securing the freedom to compete on a local market, where the local suppliers will

see their economical position yeopardised, threathend by foreign companies, with

whom they cannot compete and whom they cannot socially control (bully) within

their local church, clan, carnival group or footbal team ?

What security will a local Justice system bring, when local courts are filled with

local judges, local handpicked prosecutors and local collaborative advocates, who

were put in place by the local politicians in order to maintain the local power?
 

If advocates from other EU-Member States are, - as much as possible - professionally

harrassed by their fellow colleagues, (free market competition for advocates does not

exist at a local level !) and left unprotected by the local Law societies as well as the

National Law Society in Spain, what kind of national advocates are going to form

these arbitration courts of the TTIP?

 

 

So in the European Union, economicly completely destroyed by the Brussels

lobbying organizations who politically control large part of the EU subventions and

the financing of certain projects, how will the Transatlantic Trade and Investment

Project function to order to warrant the 'free (competion) market' at local level ?

By means of ISDS, composed of hand picked collaborative national advocates, who

are to function as arbiters / judges in a supra-national arbitation court, in order to protect

rèspecitve local interests? 

 

Will ISDS than be a favourable to Free Trade? Will this clause protect both the investors,

the consumers, as well as the citizens ? Is it possible to please all at the same time ?

 

Or will only the few double qualified international advocates, - who get no chance to render

their services at a local level - be able to contribute to some Justice, Freedom of trade and

security, so that commerce may prosper ?

Mevr. mr. drª Marian Aletta Does
spanish advocate - portuguese advocate - dutch lawyer.
abogaciainternacional@gmail.com - marianaletta@gmail.com

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