EU Investment Policy: The Legal Challenges

Date: October 4, 2017, 12:10-1pm
Location: Columbia Law School, Jerome Greene Hall, Room 102A

The EU is the biggest source and recipient of foreign investment in the world. It also has exclusive competence over foreign direct investment. Nevertheless, the construction of a genuine EU investment policy has been and continues to be challenged from multiple sides. Can the EU conclude investment treaties on its own, or only together with the Member States? Does the EU have a say on portfolio investment? Will the EU’s proposed investment court system stand up to legal scrutiny? What is to become of existing bilateral investment treaties between EU Member States? Should there be a form of EU-wide screening for foreign investment? In this talk, co-hosted by CCSI, the Columbia Society of International Law, and the Columbia Business and Law Association, Mislav Mataija gave an overview of these battles, some of which have yet to be fought, and map out their implications for EU investment policy.

Mislav Mataija is member of the WTO and Trade Policy team of the European Commission’s Legal Service. He represents the European Union in WTO disputes and advises on a range of international trade and EU law matters. He holds law degrees from the University of Zagreb (LLB) and Columbia Law School (LLM, ’09), as well as a PhD in Law from the European University Institute in Florence. He is currently a visiting professor at the Catholic Universities of Lille and Lyon, and was previously a lecturer and researcher in EU and WTO law at the University of Zagreb. He has published a number of academic papers and a monograph with Oxford University Press (‘Private Regulation and the Internal Market: Sports, Legal Services, and Standard Setting in EU Economic Law’, 2016).