Learn about the secret weapon Canadian mining companies are using to extract money from developing countries when environmental measures, Indigenous rights and community resistance create democratic roadblocks to their extracting oil, gas and minerals.
Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) is an increasingly controversial but still overlooked part of Canada's free trade agenda. The Trudeau government has pulled NAFTA's ISDS system out of the new deal with Trump, the USMCA, because of its negative impact on democracy. But Canada continues to maintain the corporate-biased arbitration system in dozens of trade and investment treaties with developing countries where, we must conclude, democratic institutions and environmental stewardship are seen as a nuisance.
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Monitor editor Stuart Trew interviews CCPA researcher Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood, MiningWatch Canada campaigner Kirsten Francescone and Corporate Europe Observatory campaigner/researcher Pia Eberhardt about their recent work on ISDS and the prospects for eliminating it globally.
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