Fossil fuel companies are using secretive tribunals written into trade deals to sue governments for more than $18 billion over climate policy.
These big polluters should be paying to fix the climate crisis they caused, but instead they want a payout.
Energy Charter treaty
Fossil fuel companies are using tribunals set up outside of national legal systems specifically for corporations to use – effectively they are ‘corporate courts’. It’s a system written into trade and investment deals which allows foreign corporations to sue governments for vast amounts. Formally, it is known as investor-state dispute settlement or ISDS.
The Energy Charter Treaty is a giant corporate court deal which many of the fossil fuel companies are using to sue. The UK government is also trying to include corporate courts in several new trade deals.
— source globaljustice.org.uk | Jean Blaylock | 18 Mar 2022