Key Message

Without investment, sustainable development is impossible. Well planned, high quality foreign investment in developed and developing countries can help make current economic practices more sustainable. Inappropriate investment, however, can undermine communities and the environment, as well as domestic development strategies. IISD examines how the rules and institutions that govern international investment flows can be improved so as to help developing countries, in particular, attract the sort of investment that promotes sustainable development.

Video


Mark Halle sees investment as critical to addressing sustainable development. (Flash Video - 1:47 min)

Team


Mark Halle· Mark Halle
Director - Trade and Investment, and European Representative
Nathalie Bernasconi-Osterwalder· Nathalie Bernasconi-Osterwalder
Program Leader and Senior International Lawyer
Flavia Thomé· Flavia Thomé
Project Manager
Howard Mann· Howard Mann
Associate & Senior International Law Advisor
Mahnaz Malik· Mahnaz Malik
Associate and International Law Advisor
Aaron Cosbey· Aaron Cosbey
Associate and Senior Climate Change and Trade Advisor
Oshani Perera· Oshani Perera
Programme Officer
Damon Vis-Dunbar· Damon Vis-Dunbar
Network and Communications Coordinator
Elka Parveva-Kern· Elka Parveva-Kern
Project Assistant
Piret Nõukas· Piret Nõukas
Project Administrator
Deborah Roosen· Deborah Roosen
Programme Administrator

Investment and Sustainable Development

A global agenda for change in international investment law, policy and institutions

What's New in Investment and Sustainable Development?

  • A Critical Opportunity for Transparency in Investor-State Disputes as Government Delegations and Arbitration Experts Meet in New York
    Country delegations to the United Nations have a critical opportunity to bring much-needed transparency to international arbitrations between foreign investors and host governments in discussions to be held on February 6–10, 2012 in New York.

  • Investment Treaties and Why They Matter to Sustainable Development: Questions and answers
    This handbook focuses on international treaties that guarantee standards of treatment for foreign investors. Today, there are literally thousands of investment treaties between governments, and many more are signed every year. Historically, developed countries pushed the agreements in order to provide an extra measure of legal protection to their domestic investors who sought to invest in riskier foreign territories abroad. Developing countries, a number of which were long resistant to certain principles and concepts embodied in the agreements, then incorporated them into their strategies for attracting foreign investment and capital into their territories. Developments over the past two decades have shown these to be powerful instruments, which play a big part in defining the relationship between host states and foreign investors. However, in their current form, they do little to promote sustainable development.

  • International Investment Law and Sustainable Development: Key cases from 2000–2010
    IISD releases a book on select investor–state arbitration decisions issued over the past decade, examining how those decisions relate to and impact governments' efforts to foster sustainable growth and development.

IISD has been breaking new ground on investment and sustainable development issues since 1998.

Investment is critical for sustainable development, which requires fundamental changes in how we produce, distribute and dispose of goods. Today this kind of change must come mainly through investment in new technologies and new processes that can replace unsustainable practices. In developing countries, where domestic sources of capital are scarce, foreign direct investment plays a significant role.

But not all investment leads to sustainable development, and not all of the global rules and institutions relating to international investment have been conceived through a sustainable development lens. IISD's work on investment and sustainable development focuses on this critical linkage, and provides new approaches to ensure that investment law and policy will make a positive contribution to sustainable development.

Contents

[1] Chevron Corp. & Texaco Petroleum Co. v. Republic of Ecuador, PCA Case No. 2009-23.