Feature story
Three panelists brought expertise from the economics and law sectors.
Nicholas Young, research fellow in sustainable business law at Oxford University, began by defining different types of international investment treaties, or agreements between two or more states or countries that set out binding rules for how foreign investments must be treated in each other's territory. However, looked at closely these are treaties based on inequality – developed states and their international corporations on the one hand and poor or developing countries on the other, with insistence on guaranteeing profits for the corporations over the well-being of the citizens of the developing states.
“When these agreements are between two countries, they are called bilateral investment treaties—or BITS,” said Young. “The growth in these over the last several decades has been exceptional.”
From 1989, there were only 385 BITS globally, and we now have more than 2,800, noted Young.
Joycia Thorat, a developmental professional with the Church’s Auxiliary for Social Action, the diaconal wing of the National Council of Churches in India, said it is critical to decode how treaties and rules of the corporate world may be done in a very patriarchal manner.
“International investment treaties are binding agreements between countries that set rules on how each state must treat investors from the other state countries,” Thorat explained. “The goal is to protect foreign investment and to encourage capital flow at any cost for the sake of uninterrupted investment.”
The investment receiving states bend to any level that affects the people, the planet, and the local ecosystem, she added.
John Njenga Kenyan economist, policy advocate, and young Orthodox Christian under the African Orthodox Church of Kenya and working for Tax Justice Africa, explored how these systems perpetuate colonization and reflecting on Investor-State Dispute Settlement mechanisms, he bemoaned: “There are communities not able to represent themselves in these international tribunals,” he said. “They might even get decisions that they were never even involved in in the first place.”
Dr Masiiwa Gunda, WCC programme executive and Ecumenical Institute at Bossey adjunct professor, said that the speakers showed what happens when profits are prioritized over the welfare, the well-being, and even over the right to life of people.
“People of good will ought to be outraged,” he said. “But it is not enough to be outraged. We ought to be outraged and act in visible ways that say to those ignored by power and greed, ‘We see you, we feel you, and we are with you.’ ”
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