Hi John,
We ended last year by reaching a huge milestone in our campaign to stand up to corporate power with Colombia. Colombia’s Trade Minister announced the country would be seeking to renegotiate its investment deal with the UK, which contains the notorious corporate courts weaponised by multinational companies against action on climate and human rights. (1)
We’ve been raising the alarm alongside social movement partners in Colombia, and this is a significant step forwards. Without the Colombian government publicly putting the treaty on the table, our demands of the UK government would ring hollow. We can now push harder for the UK trade minister to respond to his Colombian counterpart – can you help?
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It’s only getting more urgent to scrap this treaty. As I write, its investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) clauses are once again being wielded against Colombia in a new claim.
We’re just hearing that a UK private equity firm is suing Colombia using the UK treaty over a highway construction project. As is often the case with secretive corporate courts, it’s difficult to unearth the details of the case, but news reports suggest it concerns Colombian legislation that protects water springs along the road’s projected route. (2)
We cannot allow more UK companies to undermine environmental protection overseas. Over 8,000 of us have already called on the UK trade minister to stop corporations exploiting Colombia – can you add your name?
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The pressure is being felt. Members of the House of Lords recently took up our demands in a debate in parliament interrogating the UK-Colombia deal.
It was lambasted as a “form of modern-day colonialism”, and ISDS denounced as having a “crippling” impact on development, resulting in “democratically elected governments having to overturn legitimate public policy”. (3)
Thank you for helping us push this further up the political agenda. As Colombia joins other global south nations, from South Africa, Ecuador and Bolivia to Pakistan, Kenya and Indonesia, in standing up to the corporate court regime, we must act in solidarity with concrete demands of our government.
In solidarity,
Cleodie Rickard
Trade campaigner at Global Justice Now
1. Colombia seeks renegotiation of investment treaty with the UK, Financial Times, 14 December 2024
2. Highway investor lodges claim against Colombia, Global Arbitration Review, 26 January 2024
3. The UK-Colombia treaty comes under fire in the House of Lords, Global Justice Now [Twitter], 22 January 2025
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