Keeping ‘Development’ in a Multilateral Framework on Investment Facilitation for Development

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-91
Author(s):  
Evan Gabor
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
World Trade Organization ◽  
Foreign Investment ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Comprehensive Analysis ◽  
Sustainable Investment ◽  
International Investors ◽  
Investment Facilitation ◽  
Principal Elements ◽  
Technical Area

Abstract In December 2019, World Trade Organization (WTO) Members agreed that the Structured Discussions on Investment Facilitation for Development would move into a negotiating mode, previously set to begin in March 2020. Their goal is to have a concrete outcome by the WTO’s 2021 Ministerial Conference. These negotiations are an important step towards creating a multilateral framework on a specific, technical area of foreign investment – investment facilitation. This paper seeks to do two things: (1) to provide a comprehensive analysis of a potential framework by chronicling the genesis of the idea for such a framework and the discussions, discussing competing views on an investment facilitation framework and outlining the principal elements a framework; and (2) to argue that a framework should include provisions focused on facilitating sustainable investment for sustainable development. To that end, it advances suggestions for promoting sustainable investment and introduces a provision, the Recognized Sustainable Investor, that could be included in the framework to incentivize international investors to invest sustainably.

Multilateralizing Investment Facilitation at the WTO: Looking for the Added Value

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 973-988
Author(s):  
N Jansen Calamita
Keyword(s):  
World Trade Organization ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Foreign Investment ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Dispute Settlement ◽  
Added Value ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Organization Framework ◽  
Investment Facilitation

ABSTRACT Since 2017, World Trade Organization members have been engaged in Structured Discussions aimed at agreeing on a multilateral framework on investment facilitation for development. The negotiations focus on establishing binding disciplines for investment facilitation, which will likely be made subject to the World Trade Organization Dispute Settlement Understanding. Investment facilitation, however, is that something states already do. Over the past decade, states have adopted record numbers of reforms at the domestic, regional, and international levels to facilitate foreign investment. These reforms show no signs of slowing. This begs an important question regarding the World Trade Organization initiative: given all the attention that investment facilitation already receives from states and international organizations, how, if at all, would the conclusion of a World Trade Organization Framework bring added value to states, i.e. value that cannot be achieved by ongoing efforts? Examining this question is the focus of this paper.

Trade and Environment in the World Trading System: A Decade of Stalemate?

2001 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Williams
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
World Trade Organization ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Trade And Environment ◽  
Trading System ◽  
The Past ◽  
System A ◽  
The World ◽  
World Trading System

This article assesses the first decade of the trade-environment debate, and explores the possibilities for reconciliation of competing positions on trade-environment issues. It explores three aspects of the continuing conflict over trade and environment in the World Trade Organization. Rejecting both optimistic and pessimistic accounts of the past and future of the trade-environment debate it argues that important changes have occurred that have transformed the debate. But, despite the normalization of the trade-environment debate around the concept of sustainable development significant points of contention remain among the various participants.

The Limits of Addressing Sustainable Development in the WTO Regime

2021 ◽  
pp. 162-164
Author(s):  
Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Social Development ◽  
World Trade Organization ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Global Level ◽  
Legal Regime ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Law And Policy ◽  
The World

This chapter briefly discusses the observation that sustainable development is now firmly embedded in the World Trade Organization (WTO) legal regime, as an objective, but the implication for this commitment remains contested as WTO members have differing views on sustainable development. Beyond the recognition of the interpretive value as part of the ‘object and purpose’ of the WTO Agreements, there has been little progress to date at the global level in finding and agreeing on specific mechanisms by which integration of environmental and social development priorities might be secured at the WTO. There is also very little space for actual cooperation on trade-related aspects of environmental or development law and policy, addressing the second tension detailed in Sections 1 and 2, and there is as yet very little progress in enhancing trade in more sustainable goods and services, though Doha negotiations continue. The chapter also discusses how it is not yet clear, in the WTO, what specific provisions and measures could be enacted to use trade to actually support sustainable development, or what additional cooperation might be undertaken by the WTO on trade-related environmental concerns, or on trade-related social issues.

Sustainable Development Provisions in the 1994 GATT/WTO Agreements

2021 ◽  
pp. 129-144
Author(s):  
Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
World Trade Organization ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
World Summit ◽  
Trade Disputes ◽  
Appellate Body ◽  
The World ◽  
Two Phases ◽  
Wto Agreements

This chapter argues that, while the World Trade Organization (WTO) may have accepted sustainable development as an objective of its members, it is not clear that the WTO has successfully integrated either environment or social development concerns into trade policy-making, to date. It considers the three opportunities for integration discussed in Chapter 3, and the implications of attempts to respond to them within the WTO, in two phases. First, it considers the WTO Agreements after the conclusion of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), and the 1994 Uruguay Round, and how they are interpreted by the WTO Panel and Appellate Body in trade disputes, as well as any progress in WTO negotiations with respect to the tensions identified earlier during that period. Second, it considers developments in the WTO Doha Round of trade negotiations that were launched in 2001, directly before the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), and how subsequent WTO disputes have addressed these tensions.

Special and Differential Treatment, Trade and Sustainable Development

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maureen Irish
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
World Trade Organization ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Differential Treatment ◽  
Common But Differentiated Responsibilities ◽  
The World ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Wto Agreements

This article examines the objective of sustainable development, listed in the preamble to the Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization. It discusses the relationship between rights to special and differential treatment included in various WTO agreements and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities that is part of sustainable development.

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