Consumer Federation of America signed onto a letter with labor, consumer, health, human rights, faith, and many other organizations supporting the Biden administration’s position against new Investor-State Dispute Systems (ISDS) in trade and investment agreements. The letter also called for the Biden administration to eliminate ISDS terms in existing free trade agreements and bilateral investment treaties.

ISDS rules give special rights to multinational corporations that are not available to domestic businesses. They provide corporations with the ability to sue a government for compensation outside of the countries’ domestic legal and court systems. ISDS claims are often in the millions or billions of dollars. An unaccountable three-person tribunal decides the fate of each case. The ISDS regime has been especially detrimental to public health, climate and environmental protections, Indigenous land rights, financial regulations, and democratic sovereignty.