Resources and Events

Resources

Investment Contracts for Farmland and Water: 10 Steps
Carin Smaller, International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2013
This brief paper outlines 10 important steps to follow when negotiating investment contracts for agricultural land and water. It is intended as a resource for parliamentarians, government officials, landholders and local communities. It provides an overview of a forthcoming comprehensive handbook that proposes model legal provisions for investment contracts. The paper discusses the following steps in the negotiation process: preparing the negotiating environment; conducting feasibility studies; conducting impact assessments; allocating land and water tenure rights; determining financial and other incentives; avoiding stabilization provisions; specifying the investor’s development obligations; identifying environmental parameters; choosing an appropriate dispute settlement mechanism; and ensuring reporting, monitoring and evaluations. The paper is available here: http://www.IISD.org/publications/pub.aspx?pno=2804

Reform of Investor-State Dispute Settlement: In Search of a Roadmap
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 2013
As part of its IIA Issues Notes series, UNCTAD has published a new paper entitled Reform of Investor-State Dispute Settlement: In Search of a Roadmap. Concerns with the current Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) system relate, among others things, to a perceived deficit of legitimacy and transparency; contradictions between arbitral awards; difficulties in correcting erroneous arbitral decisions; questions about the independence and impartiality of arbitrators; and the length and the costs of arbitral procedures. These challenges have given rise to a broad discussion about the need to reform the current system of investment arbitration. To give shape to this debate, the paper puts forward five main reform paths: promoting alternative dispute resolution; tailoring the existing system through individual IIAs; limiting investor access to ISDS; introducing an appeals facility; and creating a standing investment court. UNCTAD notes that each of the five proposed reform options comes with its specific advantages and disadvantages and responds to the main concerns in a distinctive way. Some of the options can be implemented via actions by individual governments, while others require joint action by a larger group. The options that require collective action would go further in addressing the existing problems, but would also face more difficulties in implementation. The paper is available here: http://unctad.org/en/pages/newsdetails.aspx?OriginalVersionID=508&Sitemap_x0020_Taxonomy=Investment and Enterprise;#607;#International Investment Agreements (IIA);#20;#UNCTAD Home

Prospects in International Investment Law and Policy
Cambridge University Press, edited by Roberto Echandi and Pierre Sauvé, World Trade Forum, 2013
The negotiation of a patchy but burgeoning network of international investment agreements and the increasing use to which they are put is generating a growing body of jurisprudence which, while still evolving, requires closer analytical scrutiny. Drawing on many of the most distinguished voices in investment law and policy, and offering novel, multidisciplinary perspectives on the rapidly evolving landscape shaping international investment activity and treaty-making, this book explores the most important economic, legal and policy challenges in contemporary international investment law and policy. It also examines the systemic implications flowing from frenetic recent judicial activism in investment matters and advances several innovative propositions for how best to promote greater overall coherence in rule-design, treaty use and policy making and thus offer a better balance between the rights and obligations of international investors and host states. The book aims to provide readers with an informed discussion of the rapidly evolving field of international investment law and policy; analyse the main issues concerning international investment relations from a multidisciplinary perspective; and bring together the world’s leading scholars drawn from business, economics, law and political science with vast experience in the field of international investment law and policy and international trade regulation. The book is available to order here: http://www.cambridge.org/ch/knowledge/isbn/item7113132/?site_locale=de_CH

Harnessing Foreign Investment to Promote Environmental Protection
Cambridge University Press, Edited by Pierre-Marie Dupuy and Jorge E. Viñuales, Graduate Institute of International Studies, 2013
Harnessing Foreign Investment to Promote Environmental Protection investigates the main challenges facing the implementation of environmental protection and the synergies between foreign investment and environmental protection. Adopting legal, economic and political perspectives, the contributing authors analyse the various incentives which encourage foreign investment into pro-environment projects (such as funds, project-finance, market mechanisms, payments-for-ecosystem services and insurance) and the safeguards against its potentially harmful effects (investment regulation, CSR and accountability mechanisms, contracts and codes of conduct). The book is available to order here: http://www.cambridge.org/ch/knowledge/isbn/item7077639/Harnessing%20Foreign%20Investment%20to%20Promote%20Environmental%20Protection/?site_locale=de_CH

Events

June

20 – 21

Culture and International Economic Law, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands, http://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/law/conferences/

26

Launch of the World Investment Report 2013, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Geneva, Switzerland, http://unctad.org/en/Pages/MeetingDetails.aspx?meetingid=297

28

International Arbitration at a Crossroads: Is There a Coming Backlash? International Bar Association, St. Petersburg, Russia, http://www.ibanet.org/Article/Detail.aspx?ArticleUid=D1AAE6B9-1568-4ECE-9024-A574A703A087

October

10 – 11

International Investment Agreements – Balancing Sustainable Development and Investment Protection, Free University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany, http://www.jura.fu-berlin.de/en/fachbereich/einrichtungen/oeffentliches-recht/lehrende/hindelangs/Berlin_Oct__2013

November

7

Salient Issues in International Commercial Arbitration, American University, Washington College of Law, Washington, DC. United States, https://www.wcl.american.edu/arbitration/symposium.cfm

8

The Role of the State in Investor-State Arbitration, World Trade Institute and University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland, http://www.wti.org/news-archive/call-for-papers-the-role-of-the-state-in-investor-state-arbitration/

13

Eighth Columbia International Investment Conference, Columbia University, New York, United States, http://www.vcc.columbia.edu/content/eighth-columbia-international-investment-conference