In the public discourse, transparency often appears as
something inherently positive, as if it was a value, a goal in itself. This may
explain why democracies so often appear lost when it comes to the pursuit of
transparency. I argue that without restoring the rationale behind transparency,
its current degeneration is detrimental both to democratic legitimacy and to
legal certainty. Rather than championing transparency for its own sake, it
should serve as an instrument to enhance social trust and thus one of the
factors contributing to the accumulation of social capital. A test case of the
problem is the role of the European Parliament, national authorities and
international investors as stakeholders in the TTIP/CETA negotiations on
investment arbitration. The changing geometry or relations between citizens,
the public authority and foreign investors matched with the current
shortcomings in transparency regulation entail normative conflicts and
undermine the legitimacy of the system.