Date: October 6, 2016, 6:00-8:00pm
Location: World Room (3rd floor), Pulitzer Hall, Journalism School, Columbia University, 2950 Broadway (W.116th St and Broadway)

CCSI helped launch a letter joined by over 220 law and economics professors calling on Congress to oppose the final Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement because that treaty includes the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism. As the letter notes, the ISDS mechanism “threatens to dilute constitutional protections, weaken the judicial branch and outsource our domestic legal system… read more

This paper explores both the role that local content measures can play in advancing sustainable development, and the impact that trade and investment treaties concluded over the past 20 years have had and will continue to have on the ability of governments to employ those tools. Certain local content measures had been restricted under the WTO… read more

Date: September 12, 2016 – November 7, 2016 12:10-1:00pm
Location: Columbia Law School, Jerome Greene Hall, Case Lounge or Rm 807

By Lise Johnson, Kaitlin Cordes and Jesse Coleman
August 22, 2016

Are a country’s obligations under international human rights law relevant in interpreting its potential liability under investment treaties? Does a company’s responsibility to respect human rights come into play when assessing which of its expectations should be protected in an investment dispute? When important public interest implications of investment treaty interpretations are at stake in the resolution of a company’s treaty-based claims against a government, can amicus curiae –“friend of the court” –briefs help fill in gaps in the parties’ own submissions?

Date: August 1-5, 2016
Location: Columbia University

Date: May 12, 2016
Location: Ford Foundation, New York

Date: April 21, 2016, 6:30–7:30 pm; Reception to follow
Location: Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, 601 Lexington Avenue, 31st Floor, New York, NY 10022

Since the 1990s, international investment law has been rapidly evolving, resulting in a complex web of over 3,000 investment treaties. These treaties have been used to challenge a wide range of host state actions and inactions that have allegedly negatively affected foreign investors or investments. Those challenges, in turn, expose host states to potentially significant… read more

This paper, prepared in connection with a February 2014 conference organized by the UN Economic Commission for Africa, discusses some of the implications that investment treaties have for investments in infrastructure and the extractive industries. It focuses on liability for government conduct (1) in connection with tenders and negotiations; (2) when responding to questions regarding… read more