A/HRC/30/44 go well beyond trade, governing investment and intellectual property as well, imposing fundamental changes to countries’ legal, judicial, and regulatory frameworks, without input or accountability through democratic institutions. Perhaps the most invidious — and most dishonest — part of such agreements concerns investor protection. Of course, investors have to be protected against the risk that rogue governments will seize their property. But that is not what these provisions are about. There have been very few expropriations in recent decades, and investors who want to protect themselves can buy insurance from the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, a World Bank affiliate (the US and other governments provide similar insurance). … The real intent of these provisions is to impede health, environmental, safety, and, yes, even financial regulations.”21 With regard to developing countries, the 2014 report of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) further notes: “Foreign capital flows to developing and transition economies may support investment, economic diversification and growth, or generate macroeconomic instability, external imbalances and boom-and-bust-credit episodes. … For macroprudential and developmental reasons, governments need sufficient policy space to be able to manage foreign capital flows, influence their amount and composition, and channel them to productive uses.”22 This correctly points out that foreign direct investment and other capital flows can generate problems in areas beyond human rights. 13. Observers have noted grave democratic deficits with international investment agreements and investor–State dispute settlement tribunals and wondered why States continue to engage in negotiations, based on partisan studies and overly optimistic forecasts about gross domestic product (GDP) growth and employment. Not only is there a failure of States to proactively disclose information about the agreements, but key stakeholders are excluded from the negotiating table, where mostly corporate lawyers and lobbyists 23 participate. There is even an attempt to circumvent parliaments by “fast-tracking” the adoption of these agreements, manifesting a gross absence of due process and hence of democratic legitimacy. 14. There is no lack of good diagnoses about the challenge. The problem lies in part in an anachronistic and uncritical commitment to the philosophy of market fundamentalism. Joseph writes perceptively: “Free trade is not an end in itself. … The fervour with which free trade advocates continue to promote their cause is astonishing.” 24 Stiglitz notes the lack of empirical evidence that trade liberalization has significantly increased GDP and employment, notwithstanding dogmatic assertions to that effect and amazingly optimistic forecasts for agreements currently under consideration. 25 As Joseph observes, because trade law spills over into other areas of law, the desire for certainty cannot legitimately quarantine trade rules from allegedly non-trade considerations such as human rights and 21 22 23 24 25 8 www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/us-secret-corporate-takeover-by-joseph-e--stiglitz-2015-05. Trade and Development Report, 2014 p. 145. Available from http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/tdr2014_en.pdf. See also UNCTAD World Investment Report 2015: Reforming the International Investment Regime. See www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/business/trade-advisory-committees/index.html.; big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/WarrenBrownTPPLetter.pdf; corporateeurope.org/ pressreleases/2014/07/agribusiness-biggest-lobbyist-eu-us-trade-deal-new-research-reveals; www.publicintegrity.org/2005/07/07/5786/drug-lobby-second-none; www.citizen.org/documents/egregious-investor-state-attacks-case-studies.pdf; and www.opensecrets.org/lobby/methodology.php. Sarah Joseph, Blame it on the WTO? A Human Rights Critique (Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 288. Joseph Stiglitz and Andrew Charlton, Fair Trade for All: How Trade can Promote Development (Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 34.