What is it?

A trade and investment agreement being negotiated between the United States and the European Union
Three main areas being negotiated
- market access
- specific regulation
- broader rules and principles and modes of co-operation
Essentially creating the biggest free trade area ever by removing tariffs and by uniforming regulation

Background

Post Cold War "Transatlantic Declaration".
- Continued existence of NATO
- Biannual meetings between ministers of State, and more frequent encounters between political figures and senior officials.
- Yearly summits
The Transatlantic Business Dialogue
The Transatlantic Economic Partnership
Transatlantic Economic Council
Creation of a group of high-level experts whose conclusions, submitted on February 11, 2013, recommended the launching of negotiations for a wide-ranging free-trade agreement.

Negotiations between the United States and the European Union started in July 2013.
If successful, the deal would cover more than 40% of global GDP and account for large shares of world trade and foreign direct investment.
Brussels and Washington set an ambitious goal of completing negotiations by the end of 2015.
Citizens and non-governmental organizations all over Europe are petitioning against TTIP

Agreement texts are being developed by 24 joint EU-US working groups, each considering a separate aspect of the agreement.
Position papers
- Broad introductions for each side's aims and ambitions for each aspect.
Textual proposals
- More detailed proposals containing an "initial offer." These draft documents can change through the various stages of their development.
Consolidated text
- Working consensus, the result of the negotiations

Textiles
Chemicals
Pharmaceuticals
Cosmetics
Medical devices
Cars
Electronics and information technology
Machinery and engineering
Pesticides
Sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS)
- barriers to trade in food and agricultural products

A self-organised European Citizens' Initiative against TTIP and CETA
- over 3.2 million signatures within a year
Hundrends of demonstrations organized by non-governmental organizations
A petition organised by political activism group 38 Degrees, urging Obama to stop negotiating TTIP, signed by over 130,000 people in the UK
National objections

Text

Food and environmental safety

Banking regulations

Privacy

Jobs

Democracy

Often included within investment treaties between two states, offers public and private sectors recourse to arbitration with the states which have signed the treaty if they allegedly breach it.
Supporters believe such clauses guarantee the terms of treaties, since they offer an independent resolution mechanism for parties who did not sign the treaty.
- The European Commission even said that ISDS would help to standardize the level of protection for businesses across EU’s member states.
Critics state that arbitration conducted in private often results in a settlement between the parties, rather than leading to formal tribunal decisions.
- arbitrators have a vested interest in pleasing investors, and that investor-state arbitration has a built-in pro-investor bias.

Since arbitrators are effectively “judges for hire” and depend on their appointments for their fees “in a system where only the investors can bring claims, this creates a strong incentive to side with them – as investor-friendly rulings pave the way for more claims, appointments and income in the future,” according to Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), a campaign group.
In December 2013, a coalition of over 200 environmentalists, labor unions and consumer advocacy organizations on both sides of the Atlantic sent a letter to the USTR and European Commission demanding the investor-state dispute settlement be dropped from the trade talks, claiming that ISDS was "a one-way street by which corporations can challenge government policies, but neither governments nor individuals are granted any comparable rights to hold corporations accountable".

By Sampo Järvinen