LABOR/NAFTA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “A day after the Trump administration unveiled its objectives for renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, U.S. businesses and a major labor coalition sparred over the merits of an international arbitration system embedded in the agreement with Canada and Mexico.
The arbitration provision, contained in Nafta’s Chapter 11 and known as investor-state dispute settlement, allows an investor from one country—often a large corporation—to challenge regulations or actions of a government in another country through an international arbitration tribunal, potentially bypassing national courts. Its fate was left unclear in the document released by the Trump administration on Monday [7-17-17].
In its negotiating blueprint, the administration said it wanted not only to secure rights for U.S. investors in Canada and Mexico, but also to prevent investors from those countries from gaining rights in the U.S. that domestic firms don’t have. The document didn’t specify what should happen to the current system, and a spokeswoman for U.S. trade representative Robert Lighthizer had no immediate comment.
At a House of Representatives subcommittee hearing Tuesday, businesses and the AFL-CIO, America’s largest labor federation, pointed to the ambiguity in the administration’s blueprint. Corporate executives pressed to retain the current settlement process as a way to defend their investments abroad, while the AFL-CIO urged removing the provision, which they say favors companies over workers and undermines national court systems.”
-William Mauldin, “Arbitration Provision Emerges as Flashpoint in Nafta Overhaul,” The Wall Street Journal online, July 19, 2017 12:01am