The TPP: A Corporate Bill of Rights

[pampango]

16. I see your point. I am not sure that electing (on a 12-country level?) members of arbitration panels

is a good way to handle it. OTOH, the idea of candidates in 12 countries running for those positions makes for some interesting possibilities and speculation. Would you have some candidate running on a platform of "I will always rule in favor of my home country" and others saying "I will try to be objective and promote cooperation"?

Of course, we do not normally know who the arbitrators are on WTO, NAFTA and the thousands of other arbitration panels that adjudicate international disputes. The best way to handle disputes between nations is the way we do it with disputes between our states - with some form of formal judicial body with authority over the disputing parties.

That, of course, smacks of the dreaded One World Government - a favorite conspiracy theory of the right and some on the left. The right sees a future OWG evolving out of the UN while the left sees it more evolving out of the WTO, I think. Both institutions are FDR creations - the UN directly, of course, and the WTO by way of his ITO and Truman's GATT.