The secret tribunals that fleece the world

This is how corporations bring governments to their knees

Secrets like this are rarely revealed.
(Image credit: Gary Waters / Alamy Stock Photo)

Trade agreements are ostensibly about making it simple and easy for trade and investment to happen across national borders. In many ways that's questionable, but nowhere more so than with respect to the secret tribunals that settle many disputes between corporations and governments.

The practice, known as Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), is the subject of Shadow Courts, a new book by Haley Sweetland Edwards. It's a short, vital introduction to its history and use, the shocking ways in which corporations have used it to bend governments to their will, and the total lack of justification for using such mechanisms in developed, stable countries. But perhaps most important, it reveals the bankrupt logic behind its most aggressive employment.

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.