Pushkar Anand Rathore 🇮🇳

🇪🇨 Very, very proud of Ecuador and of our people for having voted against the return of investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms (ISDS) in yesterdays’s referendum. A few words of context: This is the second time that the Ecuadorian people say No to ISDS and its international arbitration courts by means of a direct vote at the ballot box. The first time was in the 2008 constitutional referendum when a new constitution, including article 422 banning ISDS, was submitted to a popular vote. Then came the hard task of exiting ISDS commitments which the government and legislators managed to do. But it took 8 years to fully achieve this, in the face of powerful lobbies doing their utmost to uphold ISDS. Ecuador first withdrew from ICSID and then terminated 24 bilateral investment treaties. I’m proud to have notified Ecuador’s withdrawal from 16 such investment treaties. With the restoration of the elite pact orchestrated by the Moreno government from 2017, the Ecuadorian oligarchs, now in power, tried to overturn the constitutional prohibition and reintroduce ISDS. Companies owned by Ecuadorians but registered abroad (tax evasion plays a big role in this story) and large transnational corporations were eager to return to a system which allowed them to evade Ecuadorian laws. They managed to re-rejoin ICSID and attempted, via sympathetic constitutional court judges, to allow for the signing of new bilateral investment treaties, but without success. Hence the importance for them of this referendum and the question: "Do you agree that the Ecuadorian State recognise international arbitration as a method to solve investment, contractual or commercial disputes?". But 63% of voters said No: a hard blow to the ISDS system, with national, regional and global repercussions. Congratulations to Ecuador, to our people and to all those who fought hard, in spite of the non-level playing field of this electoral campaign, for the triumph of the No to ISDS. It’s a No to the primacy of capital over human beings. A No to injustice and impunity. And a Yes to people, the environment, sovereignty, and democracy. 🇪🇨 🇪🇨 🇪🇨