Stop the Abuse – Time to End ISDS

Colombia faces huge claims by Multinational Companies often because it has upheld rulings by the Colombian Courts, made policy changes to address climate change, protected its biodiversity and its forests. Large multinational corporations some of which are British companies or registered on the London Stock Exchange are bringing these cases.  

Multinationals are using secretive tribunals to sue Colombia for billions over decisions that protect water, land, rights and our collective future. This anti-democratic system — known as investor-state dispute settlement, or ISDS — lets corporations challenge public-interest decisions outside national courts and demand vast pay outs from governments.

Colombia is already facing claims worth more than US$13 billion, money that should be spent on the peace process, schools, healthcare, environmental protection and communities, not handed to corporations. We cannot allow corporate courts to put profit before people and the planet. Join the call to end ISDS and defend Colombia, the UK and every other country’s right to make decisions in the public interest.

Support Colombia’s rural population: Indigenous, Afro-Colombian and Campesinos

Make your voice heard

Join the movement to #endISDS and sign the petition!

Why does this matter?

“Investor–state dispute settlements don’t just mean growing debt burdens for countries: they are also a barrier to action on the climate crisis”. Joseph Stiglitz

Fossil fuel giants, mining corporations and others are using secretive tribunals to sue governments for billions over Court decisions that go against them or policy changes they don’t like. Colombia alone faces 32 known claims in International Investment Arbitration (IIA).

Worldwide, fossil fuel and mining companies had won more than US$100 billion in awards by 2023. But these awards are not only limited to fossil fuel companies: 

Spanish giant Telefonica was awarded US$380 million plus interest over alleged breached of the fair and equitable treatment after a Colombia’s Constitutional Court’s ruling.

ISDS has recently taken on greater urgency for the UK, as it is facing a legal challenge by a fossil fuel company as a result of a ruling by the High Court that blocked the Whitehaven mine on environmental grounds.

“International investment agreements may lead to ‘regulatory chill’… [and to] countries refraining from or delaying the adoption of mitigation policies, such as the phasing out fossil fuels” The 2022 Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

A quantitative analysis of investment arbitrations identified that the fossil fuel and mining industries are the most litigious of all the industries. The majority of fossil fuel and mining claims filed between 1995 and 2021 were brought by investors from just five countries – and one of these five was the UK. For low- and middle-income governments who wish to adopt policy changes and transition away from fossil fuel mining, ISDS is economically severely damaging.

Glencore vs. Colombia. The Cerrejón open-pit coal mine, owned by Glencore and registered on the London Stock Exchange, is the largest in Latin America. The persistent expansion of the mine has led to environmental degradation, health issues and serious human and indigenous rights impacts. After Colombia’s Constitutional Court suspended a proposed expansion to the mine in 2017 citing such concerns, Glencore sued the Colombian government claiming USD 489 million in damages. This was despite the fact that the challenged measures affected only a small part of the Cerrejón Mine, which continues to operate, produce coal, and yield extraordinary profits – in 2022 alone these were USD 5.6 billion.

These tribunals give powerful corporations leverage against decisions made to help ordinary people protect homes, their livelihoods, and tackle the climate crisis and safeguard the natural environment. 

Governments have already recognised that an ISDS treaty involving the UK and other European Countries – the Energy Charter Treaty, is incompatible with the Paris Climate Agreement. However, ISDS is also included in a web of smaller treaties. 

What can we do?

We need to end this anti-democratic system. The good news is that we’ve done it before. Fossil fuel companies have been using ISDS in the Energy Charter Treaty to block climate action. After thousands of us took action, many of our governments woke up to the risk and have been getting out of that treaty – we won! 

Now we need to join together and tell our governments to close the loophole provided by the web of small treaties and get rid of ISDS completely. 

This year the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels was held, and many governments, especially those of countries in the global south, said that ISDS is a barrier to climate action. But pushback from a few countries in the global north meant that agreement was not reached on this. However, it is a major step forward that governments are discussing this and it is an opportunity we must seize for governments to work together to end ISDS. 

No false solutions!

The EU and some European governments have at times tried to make small changes to the way that ISDS works and claim that this will solve the problem. It won’t, because those tweaks leave the core of the system (allowing corporations to sue governments outside of national legal systems) unchanged. Therefore, we refer to ‘all forms of ISDS’ to be clear that we also mean these other versions – which are called things like ICS (investment court system), MIC (multilateral investment court) or a ‘standing mechanism’.