A Compliance Check of the European Parliament’s TTIP Resolution

The report concludes that the European Commission failed to follow the European Parliament's recommendations on TTIP, specifically by negotiating in areas with divergent EU-US rules, infringing on the EU regulatory process, and failing to meaningfully reform the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism.

• The European Commission continued to negotiate regulatory cooperation in sectors where EU and US standards differ significantly, such as chemicals, pesticides, and cosmetics, despite Parliament's recommendation to avoid such areas.
• The report argues that the European Commission has already compromised existing EU protection standards to facilitate trade, citing the approval of 17 GMOs in 2015 and the extension of maximum residue levels for fosetyl in almonds.
• Proposed 'Regulatory Cooperation' and 'Good Regulatory Practices' chapters may undermine the EU's precautionary principle by pushing the EU toward a risk-based approach, similar to that of the US, particularly regarding Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures.
• The European Commission's proposals would grant the US Government privileged early access to draft EU legislative measures before they are presented to the European Parliament, potentially diminishing democratic scrutiny.
• The report claims that TTIP's requirements for trade impact assessments and extensive stakeholder consultations will delay the adoption of protective human health and environmental legislation.
• The proposed Investment Court System (ICS) is deemed insufficient because it does not require the exhaustion of domestic remedies and may violate Article 267 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU by bypassing the European Court of Justice's exclusive jurisdiction to interpret EU law.
• The ICS proposal fails to guarantee judicial independence due to opaque selection processes for tribunal members and a lack of financial independence, leaving judges incentivized to favor private investors.
• The report asserts that the ICS proposal restricts the sovereign right to regulate by allowing non-democratically selected arbitrators to determine if public interest measures are 'necessary' and 'legitimate'.

APA

Center for International Environmental Law (2016). A Compliance Check of the European Parliament’s TTIP Resolution. https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/TTIP-Resolution-Compliance-Check.pdf

Chicago

Center for International Environmental Law. A Compliance Check of the European Parliament’s TTIP Resolution. 2016. https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/TTIP-Resolution-Compliance-Check.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Center for International Environmental Law |title=A Compliance Check of the European Parliament’s TTIP Resolution |date=7 July 2016 |url=https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/TTIP-Resolution-Compliance-Check.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{centerforinternationalenvironmentallaw2016compliance, author = {{Center for International Environmental Law}}, title = {{A Compliance Check of the European Parliament’s TTIP Resolution}}, institution = {Center for International Environmental Law}, year = {2016}, month = jul, url = {https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/TTIP-Resolution-Compliance-Check.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }