Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

First, the EU has made provision that such hearings will not be in private and the individuals involved will not choose the arbitrators. The choice of arbitrator will be by the two sides - the European Union and the US, if the US is involved. On the question of why such protections are necessary, the EU is seeking to set up investment agreements with many countries, including China, Korea and Singapore, and in many of these countries the body of law that one would need has not yet been developed, so there is clearly a case for investor protection. In the case of the US, they obviously want us to have uniformity across the EU, but the EU in its negotiating mandate has sought to ensure that European interests are protected by insisting that freedom of public policy will be guaranteed so that one can introduce regulation in those areas. The Canada agreement is a good model. A challenge can be brought under these systems - these are listed - where there has been a denial of justice in criminal, civil or administrative proceedings, a fundamental breach of due process, manifest arbitrariness, targeted discrimination on manifestly wrongful grounds or abusive treatment of investors. Clearly, those are protections that could reasonably be put into an agreement. It is important to bear in mind that we are negotiating with a sovereign government in the US and it, equally, is determined to ensure its freedom to regulate. This is an area where there is a mutual interest in having fair protection in such trade agreements.

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