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Trade in Services Agreement (TISA)

PSI Global Trade Summit

Date: 
16 September, 2014 to 17 September, 2014

Public Services International (PSI), affiliate leaders and partners will convene in Washington, D.C., in September 2014 to discuss the new threats posed to workers, public services, democracy and our communities by trade and investment agreements.

How investor-to-state dispute settlement threatens public welfare and undermines democracy

12 Sep 2014

Many international trade and investment agreements give individuals and corporations who invest in other countries access to a special legal procedure that can challenge domestic policy decisions in private tribunals. Investors—meaning anyone who buys property in a foreign country, from a hectare of land to stocks and bonds—can use “investor-to-state dispute settlement” (ISDS) to sue governments over laws, regulations and even domestic court decisions that affect current or future profits. You can think of ISDS as establishing special “corporate courts” that have their own rules and that a country’s own citizens cannot use.

New Trade Deal—TISA—Could Undermine Safety, Environmental, Workers’ Rights Regs

11 September 2014

AFL-CIO - The United States is currently negotiating a new International Services Agreement called the Trade in Services Agreement, or TISA. At the start of 2012, a number of World Trade Organization (WTO) member states, including the European Union, formed a group called the “Really Good Friends of Services” or RGF (and yes, that is really what they named themselves), with the purpose of drafting a trade agreement that would further liberalize trade and investment in services and expand regulatory disciplines on services sectors.

New Trade Agreements: The Threats to Public Services and Democracy

04 September 2014
'The Really Good Friends of Services' - Photo: Jared Rodriguez - Truthout

#psiglobaltradesummit2014 - Public Services International (PSI), affiliate leaders and partners will convene in Washington, D.C., 15-17 September 2014 to discuss the new threats posed to workers, public services, democracy and our communities by trade and investment agreements.

Undeterred by sharp increases in inequality across the globe, nor the devastation created by reckless deregulation of the financial markets, multinational corporations have been urging our governments that further radical and permanent liberalization is now required through a web of binding trade and investment agreements.

TISA: What Global Corporations learned from the Battle in Seattle

12 August 2014

The Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) has recently burst into the headlines for all the wrong reasons.
Negotiated in secret in Geneva for almost two years by over 50 countries, including the European Union, USA, Japan, Canada, Colombia, Chile, Mexico, Australia and South Korea, it has taken months of work from global researchers and a spectacular leak from Julian Assange’s Wikileaks to expose anything about its contents.

PSI meets UNCTAD Secretary-General to discuss public services, trade and development

21 July 2014
PSI meets UNCTAD Secretary-General

PSI recently met with Dr Mukhisa Kituyi, Secretary-General of the United Nations Committee on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) to discuss the role public services play in development and how trade agreements can undermine this.

Sanya Reid Smith - Third World Network

Video: Trade agreements and the threat to quality public services

24 June 2014

Sanya Reid Smith - Third World Network

World Public Services Day 2014

Date: 
23 June, 2014

On the occasion of World Public Services Day, Public Services International and its affiliates are working together across borders to end tax havens, tax avoidance and corruption, and to bring in progressive tax systems that are properly resourced and enforced. Tax justice enables public spending for the common good, and provides the means for economic self-sufficiency for municipal, regional and national governments.