This is an unsubtle invitation to load the Gats with requirements that rulers know their democratic parliaments could not otherwise accept. This would be supremely dangerous if, one day, the US elected a president who wanted to shred air pollution rules or, say, Britain elected a prime minister who had a mad desire to sell off the rest of his nation's air traffic control system. How convenient for embattled chief executives. What elected congresses and parliaments dare not do, Gats would require. While parliaments are lumbered with dated constitutional requirements to debate a law's legitimacy in public, with public evidence, and hearings open to citizen comment, Gats panels are far more efficient.
Hearings are closed.
The WTO was working from the proposals suggested in yet another confidential document also sent to me by my good friend, Unnamable Source. I was not permitted to question the Trade Minister himself. Now, I can understand how Caborn goofed that one. And that illustrates the key issue. No one in Britain should bother with what Caborn thinks.