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you have to take it very seriously the threats of the International Chamber of Commerce of more lawsuits against Mexico in international courts in light of the judicial reform approved by the Chamber of Deputies last week, and currently under discussion in the Senate (IP insists on risks for investments
, The Day, 4/9/24).
Claudia Sheinbaum’s government will already inherit 23 pending investor-state dispute resolution (ISDS) lawsuits from transnational companies; 21 of them were filed during AMLO’s six-year term, and were motivated by regulations and actions taken to strengthen the 4T; many to return the control of hydrocarbons and electricity to the State, and to prevent environmentally destructive mining projects, which local communities oppose. The lawsuits are the punishment to the 4T for trying to reverse neoliberalism, but also the cost of endorsing the very rules implied by the free trade agreements (FTA) and bilateral investment agreements (BIT), signed by previous neoliberal governments.
An updated version of the X-ray of transnational power in Mexico, which analyzes the consequences of the investment protection regime under the FTAs and BITs. It is published by the Transnational Institute, Institute for Policy Studies, Enlace Comunicación y Capacitación, AC, Educa AC, Otros Mundos Chiapas, AC and Project on Organization and Development, Education and Research (Poder), among other organizations (https://isds-americalatina.org/mexico/).
The report found that Mexico has 31 Reciprocal Promotion of Investment Agreements (RPIIAs or BITs) in force, most of them (18) with European countries. All (except three) entered into force after 2000. Of those, 22 could be terminated, since they have passed the initial 10-year phase stipulated by the treaties for their validity, which gives Mexico the opportunity to review or withdraw from more than 70 percent of all its BITs, to avoid further lawsuits.
However, most of the lawsuits against Mexico come from American and Canadian companies, under NAFTA and now the USMCA. Since the Mexican Network for Action against Free Trade (RMALC) was formed, when NAFTA was being negotiated, it was pointed out that the enormous privileges that would be granted to foreign investments would seriously undermine national sovereignty. The first thing Adolfo Aguilar Zínser did when he was my teacher of a course on North America, at the FCPS of UNAM in 1991, was to ask us if we considered the US to be an empire for Mexico. Many of us answered yes, the answer he expected. Later, he developed the course explaining how NAFTA, under negotiation at the time, was a project for the economic annexation of Mexico to the US, based on its strategic priorities, including energy.
This economic annexation caused the destruction of the peasantry, the bankruptcy of productive sectors and the privatization of public assets in Mexico. But as Jeff Faux explains in The global class war (https://tinyurl.com/4ykd9wsy), NAFTA was a project of transnational class interests. It also meant what Dan Kaufman calls, in a recent article, One of the most momentous events in recent American political and economic history
. He explains that between 1997 and 2020, more than 90,000 factories closed as a result of NAFTA and similar agreements. And he warns that “it is possible that the next presidential elections, like the previous two, will be determined by three of the ‘blue wall’ states – Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania – all affected by deindustrialization. In 2016, Donald Trump won those states, and the presidency, in part by attacking NAFTA” ( The New York Times in Spanish https://tinyurl.com/dmuapa3x).
Regardless of who wins the presidency in the United States this November, Claudia Sheinbaum’s government will have to confront the web of privileges that the FTAs and TBIs grant to transnational corporations. Sheinbaum will have the opportunity at the next G-20, which will take place in Brazil on November 18-19, to promote what is precisely proposed in the editorial of The Day On September 3, 2018, he said: “Governments committed to sovereignty, self-determination of peoples, democracy and human rights must form a common front to create the institutional, legal, technological, economic and political mechanisms necessary to put a stop to individuals (in reference to Elon Musk) and corporations that constitute supranational powers. de facto with an undisguised willingness to subvert entire countries” (https://www.jornada.com.mx/2024/09/03/edito).
G-20 member countries that have terminated their BITs with European countries include India, Indonesia, and South Africa; each has developed its own alternative BIT model, as has Brazil. Moreover, Germany, France, Italy, and the entire European Union have withdrawn from the Energy Charter Treaty precisely because it includes the investor-state dispute settlement system (ISDS). Other G-20 members have eliminated ISDS in their bilateral treaties, such as the United Kingdom and Australia, and, of great importance for Mexico, the United States and Canada among themselves, which Mexico should seek in the review of the USMCA in 2026.
In Mexico and in many countries around the world, it is claimed that FTAs and TBIs are mere legal, technical instruments to facilitate ours
exports and attract foreign investment to generate economic growth at all costs. X-ray of power We propose the second government of the 4T Conduct an audit of all investment protection treaties (under FTAs or BITs) and their impacts on the Mexican economy and society
and not to sign new treaties with investment protection clauses
especially the one pending ratification with the European Union. Fair trade and democracy now.
*Researcher at the Institute for Policy Studies www.ips-dc.org and Associate of the Transnational Institute www.tni.org
