The Romanian parliament has rejected a mining project that would pour 240,000 tons of toxic cyanide in their land – that’s enough poison to kill 80 times the whole world’s population [1]. In response, the mining corporation is using a parallel legal system, exclusive for investors, to demand $4 billion in compensation. Faced with such threat, Romania might have to give in and accept a major environmental and health disaster.
Roxana Pencea Brădățan, an active citizen in Romania, explains what is happening:
„Investor privileges are being used to subvert democracy and the rule of law. Romanians opposed the Roşia Montană mine and our courts declared it illegal. But through a parallel legal system, a corporation could now force us to open the mine or pay billions.“
A new European Commission proposal would create a massive parallel legal system of this kind. If our representatives approve it, all Europeans would be faced with many more attacks of the kind Romanians face right now.
But we have a big opportunity to block this offensive early on. There’s a public consultation before negotiations start. We have only a few days before it ends. Let’s use it to flood the consultation with our rejection for more privileges for corporations and investors. On the final day of the consultation we will be in Brussels and hand over all your answers to the Commission!
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As a wave of mobilisations against TTIP and CETA [2] has swept across Europe to stop the rise in parallel legal systems to sue democracies, corporations and investors are fearing our resistance. Recently, almost 150,000 Europeans took part in another public consultation to reject these privileges. That’s why the global corporate power has changed strategy and is now sneakily pushing for the establishment of a massive parallel legal system at a global scale… but under a different name [3].
This special legal system is different to traditional courts and our democratic judicial systems. It serves the purpose of challenging any law big businesses think is affecting their expected profits. Indeed the mining corporation is not suing Romain $4 billion for losses, but for benefits they estimate won’t happen.
Once governments start fearing being sued, the face of decision-making will change. The demands of corporations will carry so much more weight if they’re able to sue us over protective laws that dent their profits. All of this will be costly – and European citizens and our environment will be paying the bill.
Join millions of other Europeans in out outcry against parallel judicial systems to privilege corporations and investors. While the European Commission is asking what we think about them we have a chance to make our voice really count. Until next Tuesday this is possible – join the movement.
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WeMove.EU team
References:
[1] https://corporateeurope.org/
[2] TTIP stands for Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, a treaty to be signed with the United States. CETA stands for Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, a treaty to be signed with Canada.
[3] They call this the Multilateral Investment Court – that is their alternative to negotiating special tribunals in each treaty between the EU and other countries, and dealing with public rejection every time they do so. It would be the equivalent to the International Court of Justice, but without the ‘justice’ bit, and not for people, but only for corporations and investors.
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