<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; text-align: center;"><b class=""><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 24.533334732055664px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Across the Political Spectrum, Trade and Legal Experts Agree: ISDS Must Be Eliminated From NAFTA, Revealing Unusual Consensus<o:p class=""></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; text-align: center;"><b class=""><i class=""><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Corporate Lobby Isolated in Its Strident Defense of the Controversial Regime That Was First Inserted Into U.S. Trade Deals With NAFTA and That Elevates Individual Corporations to Equal Status With Nations<o:p class=""></o:p></span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJivUBCH16bFMbwmW7DvxuzFCl1DHXA1L" style="color: purple;" class=""><b class=""><i class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(0, 112, 192);" class="">Watch Event Video</span></i></b></a><b class=""><i class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(0, 112, 192);" class=""><o:p class=""></o:p></span></i></b></p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">WASHINGTON, D.C. – Trade experts and constitutional scholars from the left and the right who battle over most issues – including the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) – joined together at the National Press Club today to support the elimination of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) from NAFTA. Corporate lobbying groups have shrilly attacked an administration proposal to limit the corporate protections in NAFTA provided by the ISDS regime and its related substantive investor protections.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">The improbable consensus across the political spectrum against ISDS shows how isolated the corporate lobby is on the issue. Ironically, while the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers and others have expressed outrage at the prospect of NAFTA’s corporate protections being scaled back, the </span><a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/us-automakers-break-with-business-on-key-nafta-issue/article/2625858" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">American Auto Policy Council</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> has called ISDS unnecessary and noted that including it could imperil the deal given broad opposition to ISDS.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">The panelists reflected the breadth of consensus against ISDS – from the </span><a href="http://www.ncsl.org/ncsl-in-dc/task-forces/policies-labor-and-economic-development.aspx#Trade" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">National Conference of State Legislatures</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> and </span><a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/national-association-of-attorneys-general-resolution-2002.pdf" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">state attorneys general</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> to </span><a href="https://www.citizen.org/system/files/case_documents/small_business_letter.pdf" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">small business organizations</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> and unions to hundreds of the nation’s leading legal and economics professors, who today </span><a href="https://www.citizen.org/system/files/case_documents/press-release-public-citizen-ccsi-isds-professor-letter-oct-2017.pdf" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">released</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> a </span><a href="https://www.citizen.org/system/files/case_documents/isds-law-economics-professors-letter-oct-2017_2.pdf" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">l</span>etter</a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> calling on the administration to remove ISDS from NAFTA. Stark criticism of ISDS has come from voices as disparate as </span><a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-138_97be.pdf" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> and pro-free trade think tanks such as the </span><a href="http://www.cato.org/publications/free-trade-bulletin/compromise-advance-trade-agenda-purge-negotiations-investor-state" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Cato Institute</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: blue;" class=""> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">to </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kill-the-dispute-settlement-language-in-the-trans-pacific-partnership/2015/02/25/ec7705a2-bd1e-11e4-b274-e5209a3bc9a9_story.html?utm_term=.47af96643032" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">, </span><a href="https://aflcio.org/sites/default/files/2017-06/NAFTA%20Negotiating%20Recommendations%20from%20AFL-CIO%20%28Witness%3DTLee%29%20Jun2017%20%28PDF%29_0.pdf" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">unions</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> and </span><a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/www.sierraclub.org/files/uploads-wysiwig/NAFTA%20Enviro%20Redlines%20FINAL.pdf" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">environmental</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> groups.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">After the Trans-Pacific Partnership debate elevated ISDS from obscurity, demands to remove it from NAFTA have emerged in recent letters from </span><a href="https://www.citizen.org/system/files/case_documents/gop-on-isds.pdf" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">GOP members of Congress</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> and </span><a href="https://www.citizen.org/system/files/case_documents/small_business_letter.pdf" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">100 small business</span></a><u class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: blue;" class=""> </span></u><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">leaders, and more than </span><a href="https://www.citizen.org/system/files/case_documents/isds-petition-release-10112017.pdf" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">400,000 petitions</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> to the administration. Congressional Democrats have long opposed these terms that make it less risky and expensive for corporations to outsource jobs and empower corporations to attack domestic policies by going before tribunals of three corporate lawyers who can order unlimited compensation be paid to the corporations by taxpayers.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><b class=""><i class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></i></b></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Multinational corporations already have pocketed $392 million from North American taxpayers under NAFTA ISDS attacks on toxic bans, environmental and public health policies, and more. Tens of billions are pending in ongoing NAFTA cases. <o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Dan Ikenson, director of Cato Institute’s Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies and longtime supporter of free trade agreements, outlined his arguments against ISDS published in </span><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/danikenson/2017/10/24/to-save-nafta-kill-its-controversial-dispute-settlement-provisions/#7c1933223168" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">his recent </span><i class="">Forbes</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> piece</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">: “ISDS should be removed from free trade agreements because it undermines how the free market is supposed to work. It is protectionism that socializes investment risk. Multinational companies that invest internationally should be savvy enough to conduct the appropriate cost-benefit analysis for their investments. The U.S. government should not be subsidizing outsourcing through ISDS.”<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Jeffrey Sachs, prominent professor of economics at Columbia University and United Nations senior adviser, described the legal and economic arguments against ISDS outlined in a </span><a href="https://www.citizen.org/system/files/case_documents/isds-law-economics-professors-letter-oct-2017_2.pdf" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">letter</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> that he and more than 200 law and economics professors from across the country sent today to President Donald Trump: <o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">“ISDS is a threat to legal order and to sovereignty. It fails on basic principles of rule of law and due process. There is broad consensus across the political spectrum opposing ISDS; ISDS is a central danger and risk that should not be included in any trade or investment agreements.”<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; background-color: white;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Bruce Fein, a constitutional law expert </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">and former associate deputy attorney general under President Ronald Reagan, raised the constitutional questions surrounding ISDS that he noted in his </span><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/16/trump-should-ignore-call-leave-nafta-alone/" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">recent </span><i class="">Washington Times</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> op-ed</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> on the subject: “ISDS is completely wrongheaded and unconstitutional. According to the appointments clause of our constitution, private individuals who are not accountable to our legislative or executive branch have no authority to interpret and render final judgment over U.S. laws.”<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch and </span><a href="http://prospect.org/article/new-rules-road-progressive-approach-globalization" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">long-time progressive critic</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> of U.S. trade policy, noted: “The corporate lobby’s crazed campaign to protect the expansive privileges they slunk into NAFTA is unsurprising, but the more they scream about the administration proposals to limit their use of ISDS tribunals to grab millions in taxpayer funds and grease the skids to outsource American jobs, the more the public realizes NAFTA’s rigged rules need replacing.”<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Haley Sweetland Edwards, correspondent at <i class="">Time</i>, and author of <i class=""><a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJivUBCH16bFMbwmW7DvxuzFCl1DHXA1L" style="color: purple;" class="">Shadow Courts: The Tribunals that Rule Global Trade</a></i> moderated the panel.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(0, 112, 192);" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJivUBCH16bFMbwmW7DvxuzFCl1DHXA1L" style="color: purple;" class=""><b class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(0, 112, 192);" class="">Watch event video here.</span></b></a><b class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(0, 112, 192);" class=""><o:p class=""></o:p></span></b></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; text-align: center;">###<o:p class=""></o:p></p><div class=""><br class=""></div></body></html>