Trade and investment are each crucial to sustainable development. Whether they in fact contribute to that goal, though, depends on how trade and investment are liberalized and managed, and how policies are crafted. Currently, both trade and investment are undermining sustainable development in significant ways. IISD's goal is to bring about modifications to the trade regime, and to the emerging international investment arrangements, so that both contribute optimally to the achievement of sustainable development.

Achievements and Highlights

• IISD co-convened a very successful, high-level workshop on Trade and Sustainability in the Americas in Quebec City immediately prior to the Summit of the Americas. Three Canadian Federal Ministers addressed the high-profile workshop, as did one each from Latin America and the Caribbean.
  The workshop's home page is at http://www.iisd.org/trade
  /qc2001/.

• The Trade and Environment Working Group of the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED) successfully completed its five-year mandate. Unlike other Working Groups, its mandate has been renewed and strengthened, and the project base expanded. With China's recent accession to the World Trade Organization, it is anticipated that this Working Group will take on a central importance in the CCICED.

• IISD achieved a breakthrough in its request to submit an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief in the Methanex case (108 kb) , in which a Canadian company has brought action against the government of California under NAFTA Chapter 11. This is the first time that the principle of relevant outside opinion in a NAFTA dispute has been accepted, with significant implications for the future. The doors to a previously opaque process are opening.

• IISD has essentially uncovered a major policy issue relating to bilateral investment treaties and has planned a program of work around the issue. We have discovered that many of the over 2,000 bilateral investment treaties give investors powers that are being used to block or "chill" social and environmental progress in developing countries.

• IISD was the only non-governmental organization invited to join the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Future Vision Task Force. The group will examine where the field of environmental standards is going, and how it can best contribute to sustainable development.

• In partnership with the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable (ICTSD) Development, IISD has launched the second phase of its Trade Knowledge Network (TKN). Expanded to eight developing countries, the network has launched a new cycle of research on key issues relating to trade liberalization and the current WTO negotiations. Already funded in the amount of CDN$1.7 million, the TKN is due to be expanded further, as the importance of capacity building for trade and sustainable development is increasingly recognized.
  The TKN's web site is at http://www.iisd.org/tkn
  /default.htm.

• Also in partnership with ICTSD, IISD has completed the first phase of work on A Southern Agenda on Trade and Environment. Based on desk research and extensive consultations with developing country trade representatives in Geneva, the project has identified developing country environmental interests in the trade context, as a basis for a more balanced negotiation agenda on trade and environment. In the second phase, beginning mid-2002, the project will undertake five or six regional consultations, aimed at drawing out new ideas and perspectives from NGOs, governments, academic institutions and the private sector in developing countries. The project will develop a manual on trade and environment for Southern negotiators and it will launch a research agenda on developing country priorities on trade and environment.

• Developing countries are suffering from their lack of access to the standard-setting process, and are therefore often forced to comply with standards that are not appropriate for them, and which they have had no say in developing. IISD has launched a project on Standards for Sustainable Trade, in conjunction with the Ring alliance of policy research organizations. The project is aimed at identifying capacity needs in developing countries in the increasingly critical area of environmental standards relevant to trade.

• In the months leading up to the Fourth WTO Ministerial Conference in Qatar (November 2001), IISD published IISD Viewpoint, a series of four information and opinion pieces on trade and sustainable development. IISD Viewpoint was circulated widely and received warmly. All four issues and a post-Doha commentary are available online at http://www.iisd.org/trade
  /qatar.htm.

• IISD published Private Rights, Public Problems: A guide to NAFTA's controversial chapter on investor rights in conjunction with World Wildlife Fund-U.S. The book, widely circulated within the NAFTA community, has had a major impact and led to the approval of a project in Investment Law and Sustainable Development. A copy of the publication Private Rights, Public Problems can be downloaded from http://www.iisd.org/trade
  /private_rights.htm.

Long-term Vision

IISD's long-term trade and investment aims are to raise the profile and importance of sustainable development as the overall goal of the regimes governing international trade and investment, and to establish IISD as a key partner to the multilateral regimes in mapping out the transition to sustainable development.

From the Director of Trade and Investment...

"IISD has aimed to strike a balance between pressure for World Trade Organization reform and constructive engagement with the WTO. Proof that we are on the right track was obtained late in 2001 with the nomination of IISD's Konrad von Moltke to a select, high-level group of advisers to WTO Director General, Mike Moore. Konrad is one of only two civil society representatives in the group, and certainly the member with the greatest history of criticism of the multilateral trading system. In this capacity, Konrad attended the WTO Ministerial Conference in Qatar in November as a member of the Secretariat, and had privileged access to the meetings not enjoyed even by most delegates! A great opportunity to promote IISD's ideas!"

-Mark Halle