Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns joined 34 other faith organizations in a letter to the trade representatives negotiating trade in the Western Hemisphere asking for the removal of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanisms from existing trade and investment agreements. Read this letter as a pdf.
July 23, 2024
Dear Ambassador Tai,
As faith organizations and religious communities ministering throughout the Americas, we urge you to please take full advantage of the ongoing Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity (APEP) dialogues, and other opportunities that present themselves, to advocate for the removal of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanisms from existing trade and investment agreements.
We live in a time of deep inequality in the U.S. and around the globe driven in part by past trade policy. These trade and investment agreements incentivized a race to the bottom in which companies shifted jobs outside of countries with strong labor and human rights standards to countries with lower standards, allowing for the exploitation of workers to maximize profits. Likewise, these agreements have enabled companies to pollute land, water and air in low-wealth communities and communities of color in the United States and around the world. The crisis of economic inequality and environmental destruction is linked. We must combat poverty, and at the same time, protect our fragile earth.
The ISDS system has taken this trend a step further by establishing special rights for transnational corporations and ultra-wealthy individuals. It empowers those investing across borders to challenge nations’ laws, regulations, permitting decisions and even court decisions as alleged violations of trade and investment rules via complaints that circumvent domestic judicial systems and are instead heard in binding international arbitration. The special rights granted to corporations and millionaires within ISDS extend far beyond the rights held by citizens and residents to challenge national policies with which they disagree.
Our faith tradition teaches that the economy should serve the people, particularly those in poverty, as well as protect and preserve creation for future generations. Policies, like the Investor State Dispute System (ISDS), that prioritize corporate interests over the protection of worker safety, human rights and health, and environmental standards do not belong in trade agreements. We call for the complete elimination of ISDS, and all policies that give unjust advantage to corporations to avoid responsibility for these harms.
Across many years and in numerous countries, we have repeatedly witnessed how ISDS cases can be used to attack and punish governments for embracing policies that prioritize healthy communities and sustainable development at the perceived expense of narrow corporate interests. ISDS tribunals have already awarded corporations over USD 33 billion in suits against Latin American and Caribbean countries involving mining pollution, water quality, toxics controls, consumer safety and other public interest policies. And, today, a staggering USD 1.5 trillion in ISDS claims are currently pending in the region.
We call on APEP countries and other governments to defend against attacks on their democratic sovereignty by working together to eliminate ISDS from all existing pacts. Doing so would also help to safeguard the budgets of developing countries — some of whom have faced single ISDS claims that represent a significant percentage of their entire gross domestic products. Crucially, ISDS elimination would also better enable the locally-enacted development programs, environmental improvement measures, and human rights policies that are needed to help uplift communities everywhere.
We specifically ask that you please propose and/or voice support for the creation of a working group within APEP that is tasked with establishing cross-border proposals for eliminating ISDS from the Western Hemisphere. We understand that sustainable investment in the region is already one broad goal for the APEP forum. Eliminating the ongoing threats posed by ISDS is a topic that deserves its own working group within that broad agenda.
Sincerely,
- Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns
- NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice
- Sisters of Mercy of the Americas Justice Team
- The United Methodist Church — General Board of Church and Society
- Presbyterian Church (USA) Office of Public Witness
- Franciscan Action Network
- Interfaith Power & Light
- United Church of Christ
- Pax Christi International
- Pax Christi USA
- Pax Christi Metro DC-Baltimore
- Sisters of Charity of Nazareth Western Province Leadership
- Sisters of Charity of Nazareth Congregational Leadership
- Dominican Sisters of Peace
- Mennonite Central Committee US
- Unitarian Universalists for a Just Economic Community
- St. Vincent de Paul
- Benedictines for Peace
- Passionist Solidarity Network
- Ohio Sisters Justice Network
- Medical Mission Sisters, Justice Office
- US Federation of the Sisters of St. Joseph
- Dominican Sisters — Grand Rapids
- School Sisters of Notre Dame Collective Investment Fund
- Hope Border Institute
- Franciscan Peace Center, Clinton, Iowa
- Roman Union Ursulines of the USA
- Dominican Sisters of Houston
- Sisters of Sint Francis Rochester Minnesota
- School Sisters of Notre Dame, CP Shalom Office
- Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange
- Wheaton Franciscan Sisters JPIC Office
- Religious Sisters of Charity
- Sisters of St. Francis, Clinton, Iowa
- InterReligious Task Force on Central America
Photo of the Amazon Rainforest by Filippo Cesarini via Unsplash.