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By Simon Lester in —

ISDS Transparency, But Only for Torontonians

There's an interesting NAFTA Chapter 11 claim going on related to wind energy. As Lise Johnson explains in Investment Arbitration Reporter:

The NAFTA Chapter 11 case relates to an offshore wind energy project being developed as part of Ontario’s Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) Program. Windstream claims to have been lured in by provincial officials in Ontario and convinced to commit millions of dollars to efforts to develop one of the largest offshore renewable energy projects in the world. However, the claimant complains that it lost its investment – suffering as much as $569 million in future lost profits – when government officials pulled the plug on the project in the face of political concerns and higher-than-anticipated costs.

The hearings are coming up, and I thought it might be worth watching, but as Lise also points out, they are only available for viewing in Toronto. The press release from the Permanent Court of Arbitration says:

Live Stream of the Hearing Scheduled from 15 to 26 February 2016 From 15 to 26 February 2016 the hearing in an arbitration between Windstream Energy LLC (USA) and the Government of Canada will be streamed by live video feed to a venue in Toronto, Canada, which will be open to the public. The arbitral proceedings are being conducted pursuant to Chapter Eleven of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

As capacity at the venue is limited, attendance is by prior registration. Members of the public wishing to register should e-mail the PCA at register@pca-cpa.org with “Registration for PCA Live Stream” in the subject line, before 17:00 CET, 5 February 2016.

Why only stream to a special room in Toronto? Is that marginally cheaper than live-streaming it on the web for all of us?  I've watched live streams of NAFTA ISDS hearings before. Why is this one different?

(Actually, what is really useful, and I only see occasionally, is when they make a transcript of the hearing available. I can live without the live video if they provide a transcript later).