I’ve been toying with the idea of whether Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) tribunals could be used for anything but evil. Rather than repeat the many, many detailed and well-researched critiques of ISDS, this post is about whether ISDS could be used to benefit the public, rather than just expand corporate power.
I see two ways to approach this: (1) by redefining who could be a “foreign investor”, and (2) by exploring human rights counter-claims brought by governments.