Date: March 24, 2020, 9:00am – 10:00am (EST); 2:00pm – 3:00pm (CET)
Location: Webinar

Based on a number of background papers and discussions during an Expert Workshop, this report identifies 12 concrete measures that could be included in the Framework on Investment Facilitation for Development being negotiated in the WTO.

Date: February 24, 2020, 4:00-6:00pm
Location: Columbia University, International Affairs Building, Room 918

This report sets forth specific steps that host-governments can take during the pre-investment, operation, and enforcement phases of extractives projects to provide financial and other protection in the context of environmental disasters associated with private sector investments.

Policymakers and environmental advocates have often overlooked how provisions granted by states in international investment agreements (IIAs) have been used by investors to challenge government measures taken in the public interest to protect the environment and advance environmental justice.

Policy makers and other stakeholders are currently asking fundamental questions about whether and to what extent international investment agreements (IIAs) are consistent with and are helping to advance sustainable development objectives at home and abroad. A 2019 paper from CCSI examines the alignment of IIAs with the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, arguing that while FDI will play an… read more

By Lise Johnson
January 14, 2020

The issue of investor responsibilities in investment law is – and should be — gaining prominence. Questions regarding whether and how investor responsibilities are, could, and should, be incorporated into or otherwise interact with international investment law and international investment agreements (IIAs) are a crucial part of the conversation regarding international investment law and policy, and reform thereof.

By Jesse Coleman
January 14, 2020

Can the investment regime be used to enhanced access to remedy and corporate accountability for human rights abuses in the context of international investment? If so, how?

By Brooke Skartvedt Güven
January 3, 2020

Investor-state mediation is a mechanism that is increasingly considered as a way to resolve disputes between companies and their host-country governments. Mediation merits exploration precisely because it can be adapted by the parties to the circumstances of any particular investment-related issue and be used to support mutually-beneficial outcomes. In this way, its malleability should be viewed as a tool that, if properly used, could overcome the failures of the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system evidenced by the current “legitimacy crisis” that ISDS faces. However, to the extent mediation’s flexibilities are used to facilitate processes or outcomes that sideline domestic legal processes, third-party rights and interests, and norms of democratic accountability and the rule of law, it will undoubtedly meet the same fate as ISDS.

By Karl P. Sauvant, Resident Senior Fellow, Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, and Evan Gabor, J.D. candidate, Columbia Law School. Foreign direct investment (“FDI”) can be an important vehicle for development. However, in recent years, the focus has not just been on development generally, but sustainable development specifically. Thus, this paper focuses on how countries… read more