An Inside Climate News investigation into the wide-ranging environmental and human rights consequences of a little-known international arbitration system is a finalist in the Scripps Howard Journalism Awards.

“Cashing Out,” reported by Katie Surma and Nicholas Kusnetz, showed how investor-state dispute settlement lets companies doing business outside their own country stymie efforts to regulate them—and win huge penalties at taxpayers’ expense.

Among the reporters’ findings about ISDS: Companies have won awards even after they flouted national laws, polluted the environment or were accused of violating human rights. Governments cannot sue foreign investors through the system, only the reverse. Arbitrators in one case can double as counsel for claimants in another. And Wall Street investors are effectively buying into cases and profiting off the lopsided rules. 

Developing countries are hit hardest—though the system ensnares wealthy nations too, hamstringing attempts to limit the damage of runaway global warming.

In January, after eight stories in the series and mounting pressure from advocates and some members of Congress, the Biden administration reached a deal to limit the power of ISDS in one trade agreement.

In the Scripps Howard awards, which honor the best American journalism, “Cashing Out” is a finalist in the environmental reporting category. The series also recently won a Best In Business Award from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing and a citation in this year’s Overseas Press Club Awards, and it is a finalist in the Deadline Club Awards.

Founded in 2007, Inside Climate News is the oldest dedicated climate and environment newsroom in the nation. Nonprofit and non-partisan, ICN publishes essential reporting, investigation and analysis about the biggest crisis facing the planet. A watchdog of government, industry and advocates, ICN holds them accountable for their policies and actions by countering misinformation, exposing environmental injustice and scrutinizing solutions.