This, just in from The SPOTLIGHT...If this isn't nipped in the
bud, then it's just a matter of time until the sun begins to
set on this Republic.

It may soon be demonstrated, for all to see, that a NAFTA panel is superior
to U.S. federal courts.

The outcome of The Loewen Group Inc. v. U.S.A. is less important than the
fact that it will be decided by the International Center for Settlement of
Investment Dis putes-a NAFTA panel.

NAFTA, the panel ruled, has jurisdiction over complaints from foreign
countries about court decisions in the United States. It also claims

jurisdiction over complaints about state and federal administrative agency
actions.

While the landmark case involves a state court ruling, the panel claims
power to overturn U.S. Supreme Court decisions as well.

The panel scheduled a hearing Oct. 15 on whether the United States is liable
for "damages" caused by a Mississippi jury's verdict against a Canadian
company. The Canadians claimed that a hefty appeal bond was an "expropriation."

The panel's decision will be final and un appealable except on very limited
grounds. Under NAFTA, U.S. courts are com pelled to enforce the panel's
decisions.

UNBELIEVABLE

It "is a very shocking and broad-based decision," Mary Bottari of Public
Citizen, a Ralph Nader group based in Washington, told The National Law
Journal. "We now have a level of review for the U.S. court system that is
above that of the U.S. Supreme Court . . . and it is three international
arbitrators who operate in secret and whose decisions cannot be appealed."

NAFTA allows foreign investors to escape liability for all sorts of
negligent acts, such as deadly manufacturing de fects in automobiles or
medical supplies, by transferring a jury's damage awards from the
corporation to the U.S. taxpayers, she said.

A three-member panel of the Interna tional Center, interpreting Article 1105
of NAFTA, made the ruling on Jan. 5. The panelists are Sir Anthony Mason, L.
Yves Fortier and Abner Mikva, a former U.S. circuit judge.

The case involves a Canadian corporation's claim that it was victimized by
racial and national prejudice on the part of a Mississippi judge, jury and
plaintiff's counsel-all of whom are black.

The Loewen Group argued that Missis sippi law made it impossible to appeal a
$500 million verdict on grounds of discrimination. The requirement for
posting 125 percent of a damage award as bond amounts to "illegal
expropriation" of a foreign investor's property, the company argued.

Loewen argued that it is entitled to protection even though a domestic
corporation would have faced the same bond requirement. It is seeking $725
million in damages from the American taxpayers.

This establishment of an international court superior to the Supreme Court
of the United States or the highest courts in Canada and Mexico is the first
of a series of dramatic steps that are designed to establish an American
Union similar to the European Union-long on the common agenda of Bilderberg
and its brother group, the Trilateral Commission.

As NAFTA expands as the Free Trade Area of the Americas to include the
entire Western Hemisphere, its 90-man commission is to expand accordingly,
evolving into the American Union Parliament. "Dollari zation" is to produce
a common currency like the European Union's euro.

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