TransCanada’s case is not an anomaly. It is part of a rising trend of fossil fuel corporations using trade and investment deals to attack environmental victories in private tribunals. For example, after Quebec enacted a moratorium on fracking under the St. Lawrence River (akin to New York’s fracking ban), a U.S. oil and gas company named Lone Pine Resources asked a NAFTA tribunal to order compensation from Canadian taxpayers. A Swedish energy firm named Vattenfall has similarly responded to Germany’s decision to phase out nuclear energy, demanding $5 billion from Germany in a private tribunal. Chevron, meanwhile, is using another tribunal to try to evade a landmark court ruling requiring the oil giant to pay for the mass contamination of Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest.
Leonardo Losoviz
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