The European Commission proposal for a global investor court for investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) – known as the Multilateral Investment Court – threatens to enshrine, expand, and entrench the current system of corporate privilege in future trade deals. A world court for corporations would be the capstone in the architecture of corporate impunity, undermining democratic institutions and lawmaking, and worsening the power imbalance that grants rights, protections, and compensation to corporations at the expense of the public interest.
Authored by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), Seattle to Brussels Network (S2B), and the Rosa Luxembourg Foundation, A World Court for Corporations: How the EU Plans to Entrench and Institutionalize Investor-State Dispute Settlement reveals that the EU’s proposal for a global investor court is a dangerous effort to salvage the controversial investor-state dispute settlement system by replacing it with a rebranded copy.