MiningWatch Canada announced that it signed an open statement seeking the establishment of an alliance of governments around the globe committed to freeing themselves from investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), described as an international system of secretive tribunals.
Over 340 civil society organizations, including regional and global organizations, signed the open letter. Signatories came from more than 50 countries spanning multiple continents.
In a news release, MiningWatch explained that many trade and investment deals include ISDS provisions, which enable transnational corporations to sue governments before ad hoc tribunals for actions allegedly endangering their profits.
MiningWatch added that the ISDS system presents the most benefits globally to fossil fuel companies, which have received more than $87 billion in awards.
“Canadian mining companies have a massive ISDS footprint in Latin America, using secretive tribunals to sue governments outside national legal systems,” said Arturo Esquerro-Cañete, MiningWatch Canada’s Latin America program coordinator. “These mechanisms are profoundly undemocratic, constraining and undermining sovereignty and the right to self-determination.”
According to the open statement, the planned coalition will consider taking steps to:
- Cancel treaties with ISDS – or renegotiate them to remove ISDS – between the governments involved, in ways that target “sunset clauses”
- Work with other countries on further efforts to withdraw from the ISDS system
- Commit to refrain from signing new ISDS agreements
- Include provisions to abolish ISDS in a future fossil fuel treaty
- Commence negotiations for a multilateral treaty striving for a world free from ISDS
Conference on phasing out fossil fuels
In its news release, MiningWatch noted that the open statement’s publication preceded the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Colombia at the end of April.
According to the statement, ISDS “threatens a just transition from fossil fuels and the urgent need for a social and ecological transformation for people and the planet.”
MiningWatch noted that Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s president, recently shared his plan to withdraw the country from the system.
“Governments have a duty to protect communities and nature, and must start moving in the same direction: away from ISDS, ” said Juan Camilo Sarmiento of Comité por la Defensa del Agua y Páramo de Santurbán (Committee for the Defence of Water and Páramo of Santurbán) in Colombia.