The Court Thats Rules The World
(文章來源：https://www.buzzfeed.com/chrishamby/super-court?utm_term=.pj4YwxPpbM#.bvq9vJb1lY，此文章僅作翻譯學習之用）
Imagine a private, global supercourt that empowers corporations to bend countries to their will.
想象一個私人的、全球化的超級法庭給予公司權力，讓他們對國家們予取予求。
Say a nation tries to prosecute a corrupt CEO or ban dangerous pollution. Imagine that a company could turn to this super court and sue the whole country for daring to interfere with its profits, demanding hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars as retribution.
假設一個國家試圖起訴一名腐敗的CEO或者是對危險品污染罰款。想象一下一個公司可以到這個超級法庭尋求幫助，起訴整個國家膽敢敢于他們的利潤，并且要求幾百萬甚至上億美金的補償。
Imagine that this court is so powerful that nations often must heed its rulings as if they came from their own supreme courts, with no meaningful way to appeal. That it operates unconstrained by precedent or any significant public oversight, often keeping its proceedings and sometimes even its decisions secret. That the people who decide its cases are largely elite Western corporate attorneys who have a vested interest in expanding the court’s authority because they profit from it directly, arguing cases one day and then sitting in judgment another. That some of them half-jokingly refer to? themselves as “The Club” or “The Mafia.”
想象一下，這個法庭能量如此之巨大，使得各國家必須關注它的規則好像這規則是自己國家的最高法庭制定的一樣，但卻沒有明確的上訴方式。沒有判決先例的運行方式，也沒有任何有效的公眾監督，這個法庭經常將訴訟甚至于決定保持機密。對這些案子進行審判的大部分是西方公司的精英律師們，他們對于擴張這個法庭的權威性有既定的利益，因為他們會從中直接受益，今天為某個案件進行辯護，明天就坐在審判其他案件的位子上。某些人半開玩笑的稱他們自己為俱樂部或黑手黨。
And imagine that the penalties this court has imposed have been so crushing — and its decisions so unpredictable — that some nations dare not risk a trial, responding to the mere threat of a lawsuit by offering vast concessions, such as rolling back their own laws or even wiping away the punishments of convicted criminals.
并且想象一下這個法庭強制加諸的處罰是如此具有打擊性--它的決定是如此的不可預測，以至于一些國家根本不敢冒被審判的風險，對于這僅僅是法律訴訟的威脅，用提供大量的特許來回應，例如中止他們的訴訟，或者甚至對于罪犯的處罰一筆勾銷。
This system is already in place, operating behind closed doors in office buildings and conference rooms in cities around the world. Known as investor-state dispute settlement, or ISDS, it is written into a vast network of treaties that govern international trade and investment, including NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Congress must soon decide whether to ratify.
這個系統已經存在了，在世界各地的各個辦公樓以及會議室秘密的進行。被稱為投資者-國家爭端解決，或ISDS，被寫進多種制約國際貿易和投資的協定中，包括NAFTA以及國會必須盡快決定是否予以簽署的跨太平洋伙伴關系協定。
These trade pacts have become a flashpoint in the US presidential campaign. But an 18-month BuzzFeed News investigation, spanning three continents and involving more than 200 interviews and tens of thousands of documents, many of them previously confidential, has exposed an obscure but immensely consequential feature of these trade treaties, the secret operations of these tribunals, and the ways that business has co-opted them to bring sovereign nations to heel.
這些貿易條約已經成為了美國大選的爆發點。但是BuzzFeed的一項長達18個月的調查，這項調查包含三個大洲，200名訪問者，數萬份文件資料，其中很多之前是保密的文件，調查揭示出這些條約之間一個模糊的但是卻又極大相關性的特點，這些協定之間的秘密運作以及各種方式讓商業導致或致使主權國家的傾斜。
The BuzzFeed News investigation explores four different aspects of ISDS. In coming days, it will show how the mere threat of an ISDS case can intimidate a nation into gutting its own laws, how some financial firms have transformed what was intended to be a system of justice into an engine of profit, and how America is surprisingly vulnerable to suits from foreign companies.
BuzzFeed的新聞調查探尋了ISDS的四個不同方面。未來的幾天里，它會向人們展示，一個ISDS的威脅是如何敢于一個國際，使得其對自身法律的修改，一些財團是如何將一個本來是公正的法律系統變成一個利潤機器，美國如何面臨著大公司們的訴訟的威脅。
