Fact Sheet: NAFTA’s Legacy: Expanding Corporate Power to Attack Public Interest Laws
U.S.-Canada ISDS Is Terminated; Expansive Investor Rights Eliminated and New Review Procedures Mostly Replace ISDS Between U.S. and Mexico
The ISDS provisions of the original North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) – Chapter 11-B – are eliminated in NAFTA 2.0. Hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds have been awarded to corporations using NAFTA’s ISDS regime to attack domestic environmental and health policies.
ISDS between the United States and Canada is altogether terminated three years after NAFTA 2.0 goes into effect. Given high levels of U.S.-Canada cross investment, this change would prevent numerous future ISDS attacks. All but one of the past NAFTA ISDS payouts that related to environmental issues involved U.S. firms attacking Canadian toxics bans and timber, energy, mining and other policies. Terminating U.S.-Canada ISDS eliminates 92 percent of U.S. ISDS liability under NAFTA and most U.S. ISDS exposure overall.