Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am not coming at this with an anti-trade agenda but with an agenda that there should be a right to trade without any recourse to these investor court systems. I take from what the Minister said that the investor court system seems to be gone completely. I ask her to clarify that because of concerns among members of parliament in many countries, MEPs, trade unions, NGOs and civil society about that particular system. It is considered an affront to democracy. The German judges expressed concerns that it did not even meet the minimum standards required for a judicial system in a democratic country, and the European association of judges took the same line.

The concerns of the NGOs and trade unions were that it was going to allow foreign companies to sue governments and so bypass legal jurisdiction. I take hope from what the Minister has said. It was allowing companies to sue governments on future imagined profits as it stood. The Ecuadorian Government chose not to renew a licence for an oil exploration company. The company took the country to court. The court found against the Ecuadorian Government and awarded the company €2.36 billion based on the profit that would have been made. I ask the Minister to clarify the investor aspect of it. There have been calls for a new chapter on that system. Where is that now?

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