The Corporate Court (ISDS - Investor State Dispute Settlement) system was created 60 years ago to protect foreign investors in former colonies after independence. It has evolved as a secretive international legal system that allows corporations to sue states for laws, regulations and domestic court rulings they think will reduce their profits. Today there are more than 3000 international trade and investment treaties that include ISDS clauses. Moreover, despite prior successes of citizen movements in pushing back at the normalisation of ISDS across all international trade, countries in the Global North are increasingly finding themselves on the wrong end of a system originally designed to limit the sovereignty of governments in the Global South.

After discussing the origins and spread of the ISDS system, this talk will turn to contemporary trends that point towards its further expansion and entrenchment: including its use by the fossil fuel industry as a mechanism to stall climate action; and its transformation into a highly profitable asset class for financial investors
 

About the Speaker
Sally Brooks is an international development academic and former practitioner. She is an honorary fellow in the School for Business and Society and a member of the Interdisciplinary Global Development Centre at the University of York. She has previously worked with Save the Children Fund, CIDSE and VSO, among others. Her current research focuses on the marketisation and financialisation of global development, and the role and influence of elite foundations. She is an activist and trade campaigner with the Global Justice York group and National Secretary of Global Justice Now.

About Cafe Economique

It  is a voluntary organisation whose aim is to provide education for interested members of the public on current socio- economic, environmental and social justice topics and possible actions so that our economic system works and benefits all in an equitable, democratic and transparent way.