Take Action on ISDS: Stop Fossil Giants from Suing Governments for Billions

Fossil fuel giants, mining corporations and others are using a system of secretive tribunals to sue governments for billions.

Sign the petition now! ⬇️

The mechanism is formally known as ISDS (investor-state dispute settlement) and is included in trade and investment treaties.

These tribunals give powerful corporations leverage over public policy decisions made to help ordinary people during the cost of living crisis, tackle the climate crisis and protect our environment.

Governments seeking to transition away from fossil fuels have found themselves blocked and forced to pay enormous sums to fossil fuel investors using these tribunals.

The EU, Germany and Denmark face a case brought by a US investor over the impact of the windfall profits tax introduced to protect consumers in 2022. Recently, the UK was sued by investors in the Cumbria coal mine, after it was quashed by the High Court over its climate impacts. There has also been a large spike in cases across Europe directly challenging sanctions imposed following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Sign the petition to stop fossil giants from suing governments for billions! ⬇️

What can we do?

The good news is that change is possible. Over one million people across Europe took action on the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), and many European governments and the EU itself woke up to the risk and exited the ECT – we won!

However the ISDS mechanism also exists in many other treaties which continues to make these tribunals available to investors.

Positively, many countries don’t have ISDS at all, or have already taken steps to start removing ISDS provisions from their treaties – that’s the example the rest should follow.

We need to join together and tell our governments to get rid of ISDS completely.

No false solutions!

The EU and some European governments have at times tried to make small changes to the way that ISDS works and claim that this will solve the problem. It won’t, because those tweaks leave the core of the system (allowing corporations to sue governments outside of national legal systems) unchanged. Therefore we refer to ‘all forms of ISDS’ to be clear that we also mean these other versions.

Europe’s role?

Although European cases have faced a high number of ISDS claims, Europe also plays a central role in the global ISDS architecture, with the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, France and Switzerland accounting for a disproportionate share of the treaties, cases and climate risk generated by the ISDS regime. The consequences are felt particularly acutely by Global South countries that are subject to the majority of ISDS claims.

Now, as governments across the world make new commitments to transition away from fossil fuels, they must not let ISDS get in the way. We need to get rid of these anti-democratic tribunals once and for all.