T-TIP: curb your enthusiasm

What a difference a decade or so makes. When the last round of WTO trade talks was underway in the early 2000s, opinion was split on whether it would supercharge world growth or destroy our entire way of life. By contrast, today’s ongoing discussion between the EU and USA on the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership are passing virtually un-noticed. True, there are stirrings of disquiet over what it will mean for certain sectors, like services or (French) culture. And some activists worry about potential provisions for something called ‘investor state dispute settlement’, which ostensibly allows corporations to take legal action against governments deemed to be breaching trade laws, for example by protecting jobs in favoured industries or enforcing employment protection laws. But nothing on the scale of the agitation seen previously. Why is this?