Among the many terrible features of the Trans Pacific Partnership, twelve countries are crafting something that would give corporations unprecedented power: a secret court for capitalist enterprises to sue any country that infringes on profits.

As it stands, with investment treaties skewed in their favor, multinational corporations enjoy the freedom to pillage developing countries–when people suffer disease, death and environmental devastation as a result, they simply claim there is no jurisdiction where they can be made to answer to a court.

Despite many international human rights treaties that countries must follow, there are none that apply to corporations–despite the fact that 37 of the top 100 economies in the world are corporations. 

But while the corporate elite flex their power across the planet, one small country has been leading a fight to hold them accountable for their crimes against humanity. Ecuador has been spearheading a project in the United Nations to create a binding legal instrument that, for the first time, would hold corporations accountable for human rights violations in the countries they extract profits from.

Leading this bold initiative Maria Fernanda Espinosa, Ecuador’s permanent representative to the UN; also having served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs and of National Defense under President Correa. She joined Abby Martin at the TeleSUR studios in Quito to discuss this historic venture, and how Ecuador ended up on the forefront of this fight.

 

Inside the UN Fight Against Corporate Impunity with Maria Espinosa

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Last month, the University of San Francisco made an alarming discovery, that 93% of Americans tested had traces of a chemical called glyphosate in their urine. Last year, the World Health Organization deemed glyphosate a “possible carcinogen”.

Glyphosate is the main ingredient in biotech giant Monsanto’s flagship product: Roundup, an herbicide sprayed all over almost every acre of food grown. Not only has Roundup been dumped around the world more than any other weed killer in history, but the US is its largest customer. According to the US Geological Survey, a record 280 million pounds were used in 2010 alone, nearly a pound of poison for every American.

Monsanto has already proven it cannot be trusted to care about anything but money, especially when lives are at stake. In this episode of The Empire Files, Abby Martin issues a scathing exposé on the corporate polluter, chronicling its rise to power, the collusion of its crimes with the US government, and the serious danger it poses today.

 

Monsanto, America’s Monster

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On Memorial Day, politicians will speak at ceremonies all over the country and repeat their favorite mantra: “Support the troops.”

This pledge is hammered into the American psyche at every turn. But there’s a hidden, dark history that shows that the politicians are in fact no friend to service members–but their greatest enemy.

An easy way to prove this is to look at how they so quickly betray and abandon their soldiers after purposely ruining their lives, and even after using them as literal lab rats. 

In this disturbing chapter of The Empire Files, Abby Martin documents decades of experimentation on unwitting US troops—from nuclear tests to psychotropic drugs—as well as knowingly exposing them to deadly poisons, from Agent Orange to sarin gas.

Most infuriating is that the hundreds of thousands of veterans seeking help from the government for the side-effects of these tests are always met with lies and denial. Be prepared to be armed with info and pissed off about how veterans are really treated in the US Empire.

 

Used & Betrayed: 100 Years of US Troops as Lab Rats

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In a system that puts profits over everything, small gangs of billionaires are given free rein to plunder the planet. One of the richest power cliques in the Empire’s inner circle is also imperiling all life on earth at an alarming rate, only to make their pockets fatter.

In the United States, the oil industry is a giant, cash-engorged beast with the loyal servitude of the state at its beck and call. It’s vast accumulation of wealth led to its vast accumulation of power and influence in today’s society.

All life on Earth is threatened by catastrophic climate change–the main culprit is so powerful that the US government is set up to serve it, rather than regulate it.

In this episode of The Empire Files, Abby Martin uncovers Big Oil’s strong-arm reach–its growth, its crimes, its power and its impunity.

Featuring interviews with two investigative journalists who have covered oil disasters on-the-ground, Antonia Juhasz, author of “Black Tide: The Devastating Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill”, and Greg Palast, author of “Vulture’s Picnic: In Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates, and High-Finance Carnivores”.

 

Untouchable Big Oil Threatens All Life on Earth

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