EUROPE  Investment Treaties Undemocratic http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=55700

A proposal to put an end to the highly anti-democratic nature of the European Union’s Bilateral Investment Treaties was heavily watered down by a plenary voting in the European Parliament. However, in their current form the treaties may pose a serious risk for European democracy."BITs were invented to protect your investment," Carl Shlyter tells IPS, "but in reality, they are much stronger: they are used throughout the world by companies to challenge democratic decisions of a state, whenever the company thinks this democratic decision could harm its profits."

"Investor-state disputes have a chilling effect," says Shlyter. "Politicians might not even dare to proceed with a new law out of fear they will be challenged by companies and will have to pay the compensation. They are very harmful for policy-making," he tells IPS.But there are more reasons why the current form of BITs is troublesome. "The cases are decided on by an ad-hoc arbitrary tribunal, not by a permanent panel of judges," Nathalie Osterwalder-Bernasconi tells IPS.

"The arbitrators mostly are lawyers working for a private law firm. In one case, they can be arguing for the investor or the state. In the next case, they will be the arbitrators. In investment treaties, you just have a few recurring legal questions that keep coming up. If you're an arbitrator, you can make a decision knowing that can help you in your next case you're doing as a lawyer." Next to that, the decisions of the tribunal are not made public. "The investor-state disputes remain completely unknown to the public," says Shlyter. "Not even the European Commission has access to the documents of the cases."