The contemporary model of international investment agreements (IIAs), enforced through investor-state arbitration, is in turmoil, if not in crisis. An UNCTAD International Investment Arbitration Issues Note published in mid-2014 identified four pathways that had emerged: maintaining the status quo; disengaging from the regime; introducing selective adjustments; and engaging in systematic reform. In recent years Brazil, South Africa and India, three of the large and ascending powers from the global South known colloquially (alongside with Russia and China) as the…

Numerous bilateral and multilateral trade and investment agreements have been and are being negotiated without proper consultation of stakeholders, mostly in secrecy and without public participation. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the European Union and Canada concern not only the United States but also the 28 States of the European Union.  As model for these new mega-treaties stands the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), which was signed by twelve…

As opposition to the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement intensifies in the United States and Japan, Australia is presently hosting negotiations for another regional trade agreement which is raising serious concerns for worldwide access to medicines. Negotiators for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement (RCEP) are currently in Perth this week for their twelfth round of negotiations. RCEP is under negotiation between the ten ASEAN member states and the six countries that have existing trade agreements with ASEAN;…

Following the release of a draft model investment treaty (discussed previously here), the Indian government last week unveiled a final version of its proposed negotiating text (click to download). As we note below, the final model walks back some of the most ambitious proposals in the earlier draft (for e.g. the scope for states to make counter-claims against investors in relation to certain investor responsibilities) – but leaves largely intact certain other innovations, such as the requirement for…

Very few among the ardent observers of the World Trade Organization (WTO) had held any hope that the 10^th Ministerial Conference held recently in Nairobi would provide some direction to the seemingly rudderless organisation. The run-up to the Nairobi Ministerial was unlike any of the previous Ministerial Conferences as most of the members did not show much interest in drawing up an agenda for the members from the 162 members to discuss and take decisions. It was not very…