They are accountable to each other, but not to anyone else. As for your example, by definition, dictators are not accountable to anyone, so it is rather inappropriate for this situation where Congress is accountable to the public.
Congress aren't the negotiators. The question was whether the negotiators were accountable, and it seems now that they are not.
The lack of any kind of accountability or oversight in these kinds of trade deals has been a major issue for the last 20 years. It's been cited as a major erosion of liberty and democracy. The fact that the negotiators are answerable to no one outside their own social circle is behaviourally dangerous, profoundly undemocratic, and only serves to underline their questionable status in law.
Treaties have been negotiated in Great Britain and the USA for centuries in secret without any doubt about the legality of that practice.
Except where those treaties involved placing limits on the legal systems of those countries, in which case doubts on the legality have historically been raised. For example, in the Succession of Quebec, the legality of which was raised in an UK court, and is the usual case reference for questioning the legality of international treaties.
However, the results of those secret or closed negotiations have usually been open to oversight and amendment via the regular legislative process. The legislature is the place for the oversight in our system. Legislators are accountable to the citizenry. So, the negotiators are accountable to the legislature which is accountable to the public. That process has worked for well over a century in the USA and more than a century in Great Britain without any doubt about its legality or efficacy.
Except that we're not following that process. That process is increasingly being bypassed, by removing the ability to amend treaties, and by vesting the judicial authority in the implementation of the decision on a 3rd party with no recourse to national courts.
However, with the fast track authority, Congress has forgone part of that oversight process (the ability to amend) which severs that chain of accountability. In my view, that is a mistake on the part of Congress. But that mistaken decision is legal.
But is the treaty's provision that, for example, a UK company be bound by the decision of the US court about matters occurring entirely within the UK, with no recourse to the UK courts, is more of an issue.
I feel these criticisms deserve to be met and answered, rather than being swept under the smokescreen of a purely semantic argument.
I agree. But criticisms should be based on reason, command of the relevant facts and some recognition of reality.
Ok, so some relevant facts:
This process has not, despite your claim to the contrary, been used for the last century. It's relatively new.
Treaties negotiated in secret can and have their legality thrown into question.
In the most famous examples of such cases, the manner in which the treaty was negotiated, the secrecy surrounding them, and extent to which the treaty drafters were accountable can and was considered.
And maybe a dose of reality:
In reality, almost every major trade agreement has been subject to political inferences and selective violation.
In reality, if a major campaign contributor in the US is told that their company is bound by the recent court decision in, say, Scotland, to their disadvantage, do you think they'll quietly fold, or do you think they'll complain on constitutional/legal grounds?
Given the above, will US companies complaining about British court decisions have the same negotiating leverage as British companies complaining about US court decisions?
