That is what the Trans-Pacific Partnership will do if it passes into "law" -- as if Corporations needed any more help 'determining our collective destinies'.
Corporate Profits will become the end-all be-all, under the new regime of Corporate-enabling under the TPP ...
The TPP Could Have Disastrous Results For The Climate, Environmental Groups Warn
by Samantha Page, thinkprogress.org -- May 15, 2015
A wide-reaching trade agreement between the United States and several Asian nations could have catastrophic repercussions for climate change, including giving corporations the power to sue governments that try to limit polluting industries, environmental groups say.
In order to avoid dangerous climate change, scientists estimate that 80 percent of the world’s fossil fuels need to remain in the ground. But coal, natural gas, and oil left in the ground means profits left on the table for fossil fuel companies. And under the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), corporations will likely be able to sue governments that interfere with their business -- even if it’s by enacting carbon reduction goals and passing environmental legislation.
“Creating a corporate bill of rights to protect investors is incredibly undermining to our ability to protect the environment,” Ben Schreiber, the climate and energy program director for Friends of the Earth, told ThinkProgress.
[...]
You know how you can tell
Corporations are NOT People
-- Because they don't give a damn what their actions will do to actual People, in the long term -- long as they can make a God-Almighty-Profit at it, in the short term.
That is by corporate design. It's called the Bottom-Line. They all chase it as the ultimate good. Damn the Consequences!
Surely Corporations would not actually sue governments, in real life, would they?
If there's a huge financial settlement in it for them, don't bet on them to simply 'turn the other cheek'.
That's not in their DNA ...
The Obscure Trade Provision Everyone Is Talking About
by Terra Lawson-Remer, huffingtonpost.com -- 05/16/2015
[...]
ISDS [Investor State Dispute Settlement] allows foreign companies to dodge national justice systems and sue governments in front of self-selected panels of private arbitrators (drawn from the ranks of corporate trade lawyers), whose decisions are binding and cannot be appealed. The system has already generated literally billions of dollars in frivolous claims by foreign corporations against democratic governments.
When Germany began phasing-out nuclear power after Japan's Fukushima disaster, Swedish energy company Vattenfall sued to recover their lost projected profits.
Australia and Uruguay are now under attack by Phillip Morris for requiring health warnings on tobacco products, because the regulations, designed to save children's lives, are cutting into profits.
French company Veolia sued Egypt after Egypt raised its minimum wage, increasing Veolia's operating costs.
[...]
The Trans-Pacific Partnership would serve to empower Corporations to do what they do best --
'protect their profit margins' -- no matter the collateral damages, to innocent by-standers --
or the shell-shocked taxpayer.
HOW THE TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP WOULD IMPACT CORPORATE POWER
-- exposethetpp.org
TPP would grant foreign corporation shocking new powers to attack the laws we rely on for a clean environment, safe food and decent jobs. Under TPP, these corporations could sneak around our courts and laws and grab millions in our tax dollars all because they don’t like our laws. How could this be possible? TPP gives foreign firms special privileges -- better treatment than local companies. It empowers foreign corporations to drag the U.S. government in front of secretive foreign tribunals comprised of 3 private attorneys authorized to order massive payments. There is no outside appeal to these tribunals dictates. And there is no limit on the laws the corporations can attack or the amount of our tax dollars the government can be ordered to pay when the foreign corporations think that their special TPP rights have been undermined by the laws all of the rest of us have to meet.
This crazy system of extreme corporate privileges is called the "investor-state" regime. It give an individual foreign corporation equal status with the entire U,S, federal government -- allowing the foreign firms to privately enforce a public treaty. The three corporate lawyers who act as judges are unaccountable to any electorate. And, many rotate between suing governments for corporations and acting as the "judges." They apply the law of TPP and World Bank and UN arbitration rules -- U.S. laws and courts are cast aside even though U.S. laws are being attacked.
When an investor-state tribunal rules in favor of the foreign investor, the government must hand the corporation an amount of taxpayer money decided by the tribunal. Tribunals have already ordered governments to pay over $3.5 billion in investor-state cases under existing U.S. agreements. This includes payments over toxic bans, land-use policies, water rights, oil contracts, forestry rules and more. [...]
Among the outrageous claims foreign firms can make under this system is that a change in government policy undermined their “expected future profits.” It does not matter if the change in law came in response to a new financial crisis or health discovery or environmental catastrophe or that it applies to domestic and foreign firms alike -- foreign firms can demand compensation from us taxpayers. [...]
Because if Corporations
were actually People
-- We wouldn't have to pass laws and regs, to get them do the Right thing -- No, if they were actually People, we could count of their consciences to do that.
But since they're not, for some odd reason, we feel compelled to give them Every Advantage in the book -- including the expansive rights to Sue our Govt of, by and for the actual People.
All in the name of the God-Almighty-Profit, as if that will lessen human suffering. ... Talk about your 'golden calves'. Talk about your run-away trains ...