A detailed look at one littleknown but powerful provision in most modern trade agreements. International trade deals have become vastly complex documents seeking to govern everything from labor rights to environmental protections. This evolution has drawn alarm from American voters but their suspicions are often vague. In this book investigative journalist Haley Sweetland Edwards focuses on one crucial aspect of these massive agreements a powerful provision called InvestorState Dispute Settlement which allows foreign corporations to sue sovereign nations before littleknown supranational arbitration tribunals. Edwards makes a devastating case that these tribunals the shadow courts of the books title which were designed 50 years ago to protect foreign investors property rights abroad are now being exploited by multinational corporations at the expense of sovereign nations and their citizens. From the 1960s to 2000 corporations brought fewer than 40 cases through these tribunals. In the last 15 years theyve brought nearly 650. In the course of her reporting Edwards interviewed dozens of policymakers activists and government officials in Argentina Canada Bolivia Ecuador the European Union and the United States. The result is a major story untold before now about a significant shift in the global balance of power.