The ITUC has described a $300m claim against El Salvador by an Australian/Canadian mining conglomerate as an example of the worst excess of corporate greed.
The claim is being decided in a tribunal under the tainted “Investor-State Dispute Settlement” (ISDS) procedure which corporations and some governments want to see incorporated into possible new trade agreements such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
Sharan Burrow, ITUC General Secretary, said, “Here again is a case of a multinational company trying to use opaque and unaccountable ISDS tribunals to effectively steal from a sovereign state. Governments should be standing up for the rights of their own people, rather than handing power over their own economies and legal systems to ISDS, where corporate lawyers can act as judge in one case and prosecutor in the next. The international community needs to confront corporate greed head-on, and get some balance and fairness into the global trading system.”
A statement endorsed by the ITUC and more than 40 other organisations sets out the details of the case, which involves the company being refused a mining permit by the government on environmental grounds.
