Dr. Lorna Gold:

We are. Both Trócaire and ATTAC Ireland welcome the opportunity provided by the Joint Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation to represent the deep concerns that we and many other civil society organisations across the world, with which we collaborate, share about the potential implications of TTIP, specifically in respect of policy space for human development, the right to regulate and climate change mitigation. While TTIP covers a vast agenda, Mr. Finnegan and I will aim to keep our remarks to three main areas, which he will outline.

We strongly believe that TTIP, if taken as a blueprint for international trade, is in direct contradiction with the sustainable development goal for "enhanced representation and voice of developing countries in decision-making in global international economic and financial institutions". It also contradicts the provisions in the Lisbon treaty that require the EU to ensure its policies are coherent with its human development policy. Our key message is that there are already existing, significant power imbalances between the capacity of states to meet their duty to protect citizens from human rights abuses by third parties and the resources of transnational corporations and the scope and impacts of their operations. That is particularly the case in developing countries, although not exclusively so. Those power imbalances would become even more deeply entrenched if core elements of TTIP, such as an investor-state dispute settlement mechanism, ISDS - to which Ms Allen already referred - are not challenged and overcome. State capacity and policy space to deal with urgent concerns, the most pressing of which is in respect of climate change - which will have an impact on everyone - but particularly those relating to the poorest in society, would be undermined by TTIP. The 3.28 million EU citizens who have signed a self-organised European citizens' initiative against TTIP also recognise the risks. My colleague, Mr. Barry Finnegan from ATTAC, will now outline some of the key concerns in more detail.