Description
Book SynopsisA detailed look at one little-known but powerful provision in most modern trade agreements.International trade deals have become vastly complex documents, seeking to govern everything from labor rights to environmental protections. This evolution has drawn alarm from American voters, but their suspicions are often vague.
In this book, investigative journalist Haley Sweetland Edwards focuses on one crucial aspect of these massiveagreements: a powerful provision called Investor-State Dispute Settlement, which allows foreign corporations to sue sovereign nations before little-known supranational arbitration tribunals.
Edwards makes a devastating casethat these tribunals (the shadow courts of the book''s title), which were designed 50 years ago to protect foreign investors'' property rights abroad,are now being exploited by multinational corporationsat the expense of sovereign nations and their citizens.From the 1960s to 2000, corporations brought fewer than 40
Trade Review"One of those wonderful, short books from Columbia Global Reports." - Felix Salmon, host of Slate Money "I read it in one night and felt like underlining every word of every page." - Cathy O'Neil, author of Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy "It's a short, vital introduction to [Investor-state dispute settlement] history and use, the shocking ways in which corporations have used it to bend governments to their will, and the total lack of justification for using such mechanisms in developed, stable countries." --The Week "SHADOW COURTS, a new book by Time magazine's Haley Edwards, shows how ISDS threats have strained support for free trade around the world." - Todd Tucker, Politico "Time investigative reporter Edwards charges that the controversial Investor-State Dispute Settlement tribunals at the heart of many current trade deals represent a major shift in global relations in favor of private corporate interest... Edwards does a great service for the public by turning the spotlight of disclosure on this dark corner of international relations." --Kirkus Reviews
