A/HRC/30/44 labour standards.26 With regard to ongoing negotiations on the TTIP, Capaldo questions current assumptions and the projections: “Projections by different institutions have been shown to rely on the same Computable General Equilibrium Model that has proven inadequate as a tool for trade policy analysis. … [W]e assess the effects of TTIP using the United Nations Global Policy Model, which incorporates more sensible assumptions on macroeconomic adjustment, employment dynamics, and global trade. We project that TTIP will lead to a contraction of GDP, personal incomes and employment. We also project an increase in financial instability and a continuing downward trend in the labor share of GDP.”27 III. Investor–State dispute settlement: a challenge to democracy and the rule of law28 15. Among the major threats to a democratic and equitable international order is the operation of arbitral tribunals that act as if they were above the international human rights regime. Investor–State dispute settlement tribunals are made up of corporate arbitrators whose independence has been repeatedly questioned because of conflicts of interest.29 Admittedly, corporate arbitrators are not natural guardians of the public interest, but of business interests and of a new “industry” that, as experience shows, has privileged investors over the public. The investor–State dispute settlement system entails a completely separate system of dispute settlement, not only outside the domestic court system, but above it, and without appeal. The mind reverts to Juvenal’s question quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (“who guards the guardians?”). Can a democracy call itself democratic if it allows the creation of separate, non-transparent and non-accountable systems of dispute settlement? 16. Observers question the legitimacy of tribunals where the investor can sue the State but not vice versa.30 Interpretations of terms such as “investment”, “expropriation” and “fair 26 27 28 29 30 Joseph (see footnote 23 above), citing Frank Garcia, “The global market and human rights: trading away the human rights principle”, Brooklyn Journal of International Law, vol. 7 (1999), p. 51, at p. 65. See also Jeronim Capaldo, “The Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership: European disintegration, unemployment and instability”, GDAE Working Paper No. 14-03, Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University, available from http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae/policy_research/ttip_simulations.html. Capaldo (see footnote above). For investor–State dispute settlement cases in the database of publicly available investment cases under investment chapters of free trade agreements and bilateral investment treaties, searchable by type of policy challenged by investor (for example, environment), but not updated after May 2010, see www.iiapp.org/. For texts of awards in investor–State dispute settlement cases, see www.italaw.com and unctad.org/en/Pages/DIAE/investor–State dispute settlement.aspx. See also www.baerbel-hoehn.de/fileadmin/media/MdB/baerbelhoehn_de/www_baerbelhoehn_de/investor– State dispute settlement_TAFTA_Bundestag.pdf; and www.iisd.org/pdf/2011/int_investment_law_and_sd_key_cases_2010.pdf. See Pia Eberhardt and Cecilia Olivet, Profiting from Injustice: How Law Firms, Arbitrators and Financiers are Fuelling an Investment Arbitration Boom (Corporate Europe Observatory, Brussels, 2012), available from www.tni.org/sites/www.tni.org/files/download/profitingfrominjustice.pdf; acta.ffii.org/?p=2118; corporateeurope.org/sites/default/files/annex-2-still-not-loving-isds.pdf; corporateeurope.org/international-trade/2014/07/ commission-isds-reform-plan-echo-chamber-business-views; www.bilaterals.org/?investor-to-statedispute; and www.italaw.com/sites/default/files/case-documents/ita0221.pdf. See John Hendy, “A threat to the sovereignty of courts and parliaments”, Graya, No. 128 (2015), pp. 52–56. 9