UCL / Bindmans LLP Annual Debate 2015 | The TTIP: A modern Magna Carta for business?

The TTIP: Is it a modern day Magna Carta, but for business, and where will it leave citizens’ rights? The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), currently being negotiated, will create a free trade area between the US and EU. Its aim is to help people and businesses large and small, by opening up the US to EU firms, helping cut red tape that firms face when exporting and setting new rules to make it easier and fairer to export, import and invest overseas. Critics however fear it will erode democracy, further hardwire ‘free market’ principles into the global economy and enforce corporate power through parallel legal systems that make states accountable to corporations rather than vice versa. Of particular interest to lawyers are proposed ‘investor-state dispute mechanisms’ – tribunals in which corporations can litigate against government, at the cost, critics argue, of human rights, citizens’ interests and the rule of law. In the 10th Annual UCL/Bindmans LLP Debate, panellists Jacqueline Minor, Head of the European Commission’s Representation in the UK; Antonios Tzanakopoulos, Associate Professor of Public International Law, University of Oxford; Allie Renison, Head of Europe & Trade Policy, Institute of Directors; and Nick Dearden, Director of Global Justice Now debate what the TTIP will mean for citizens rights. The debate is chaired by Joshua Rozenberg. This year's debate was held on 17 June 2015 in UCL's Cruciform Building. Find out more about the event on our website at http://www.laws.ucl.ac.uk/event/bindmans-debate/