Reader's letter: Residents have signed a letter urging Bexhill and Hastings MPs to push for no Corporate Court clauses to be included in UK trade deals

Climate Change is threatening our very existence as the human race, so surely we should not be paying multinational companies to allow us to combat it!

Dating back to the 1950s and 60s, when companies with big investments in newly independent countries were worried they'd lose their investments through nationalisation, the system of Corporate Courts was born. A company could sue a country which made new laws which would harm its present or future profits.

Fast forward half a century. That system still exists. The Netherlands are being sued for €billions by two fossil fuel companies, for passing a law to phase out coal fired power stations.

At COP 26 our own government committed to cutting CO2 emissions. Now, they are making new post Brexit trade deals. Sixty seven Bexhill residents have signed a letter to Huw Merriman MP, urging him to push for no Corporate Court clause to be included in any trade deal signed by the UK government. A similar letter has been sent to Sally-Ann Hart MP, signed by 10 Hastings residents, who happened to be in Bexhill when the local branch of Global Justice Now were raising awareness of this danger to our future.

Very few people have even heard of Corporate Courts, officially named ISDS (Investor State Dispute Settlement) - indeed, they are held in secret. Italy and Slovenia are just two of the countries being sued along with the Netherlands. We need to ensure that we in the UK do not allow our ability to make decisions to be threatened by big business. We must not accept a Corporate Court clause in any future trade deal.

Further information at http://old.globaljustice.org.uk/corporate-courts.html