NAFTA Keystone XL Pipeline $15B ISDS Attack
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Within hours of taking office, President Biden revoked the permit for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. The project, which would worsen the climate crisis, also posed major health and safety risks to indigenous people whose land it crossed. Now the Canadian corporation that wanted to build the pipeline is using a NAFTA Investor-State Dispute System (ISDS) tribunal to demand $15 billion from U.S. taxpayers.
ISDS allows multinational corporations to sue governments before a panel of three corporate lawyers, who can award unlimited sums to be paid by taxpayers, including for the loss of expected future profits. A years-long civil society and labor campaign got the original ISDS rules whacked out of the revised NAFTA. But that fix is phased-in over three years. This means legacy cases like TC Energy’s can be launched until 2023.
In this episode, we look at the Keystone XL NAFTA ISDS case, the new rules governing investor rights in North America, and the future of the ISDS regime.
Learn more at rethinktrade.org.
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Music: Groove Grove by Kevin MacLeod.
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3831-groove-grove.
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