Take action against undemocratic trade deals
The UK government is currently negotiating trade deals with countries around the world in secret, and without democratic scrutiny and accountability. The Trade Justice Scotland Coalition is campaigning to bring these deals into the open with the Scottish parliament and Scottish citizens given a voice in what these deals contain and the power to stop any deal that would be bad for people and planet.
Find out more/take action
Watch the podcast on trade and coronavirus from Global Justice Now
Sign the petition against a US trade deal under President Biden
Find out more about data privacy and future trade deals
Read about how trade deals might impact on everyday concerns in Scotland here
Take Action against Corporate Courts
Imagine a world where transnational corporations don’t have to follow the same laws as everyone else, but instead have their own corporate courts. Not courts where the companies are put on trial, but where corporations sue governments for huge sums of money.
It sounds like dystopian science fiction, but corporate courts are real. Also known as Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), these special privileges are granted to transnational companies by rules in trade and investment deals.
ISDS has enabled corporations to sue countries for policies and laws that they consider threaten their profits – even when those policies and laws are designed to protect public health, human rights and the environment.
Across the world, taxpayers are forced to cough up millions which could be used for healthcare or education, to ‘compensate’ corporations for democratic decisions that protect people and planet. Often the threat of a case alone can also pressure governments to back down on important policies.
Photo: ISDS petition hand in
In the UK, as the government reassesses trade and investment policy in a post-Brexit context we want assurances that ISDS will have no place in future trade deals. In January, some of our member organisations handed in a petition with 70,000 signatures to the Department for International Trade calling on the UK government to commit to keeping controversial ‘corporate courts’ out of post-Brexit trade deals.
Read this detailed briefing about corporate courts
Read more on the ISDS petition here
Just Trade Principles
Please ask your MP to sign up to these ethical trade principles.
Read the Just Trade Principles
Read the Just Principles for Trade policy briefing (useful for writing to your MP)