{"id":223,"date":"2009-02-06T02:55:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-06T07:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/itn.mattrock.ca\/2009\/02\/06\/u-s-academics-urge-the-obama-administration-to-improve-the-international-investment-regime\/"},"modified":"2013-02-05T10:05:03","modified_gmt":"2013-02-05T16:05:03","slug":"u-s-academics-urge-the-obama-administration-to-improve-the-international-investment-regime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/2009\/02\/06\/u-s-academics-urge-the-obama-administration-to-improve-the-international-investment-regime\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. academics urge the Obama administration to improve the international investment regime"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Damon Vis-Dunbar<br \/>\n6 February 2009<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Faculty at Columbia University in New York have called on U.S. President Barack Obama\u2019s administration to address \u201cimperfections\u201d in the international legal regime that governs foreign investment.<\/p>\n<p>In a letter to the President, the academics write: \u201cWhile the current international investment regime has been heralded as a great success, the speed with which it has developed has led to imperfections that need to be addressed to maintain and strengthen its legitimacy and effectiveness.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The letter is now being circulated in the hopes that more people will sign on.<\/p>\n<p>Members of the Columbia University faculty raise four concerns: the international investment law regime favours the rights of investors over those of host states; the piecemeal expansion of investment treaties and inconsistent interpretations of their provisions jeopardize the predictability of system; developing countries are not equipped to respond to complex investor complaints under investment treaties; and countries may restrict foreign investment in response to current financial troubles.<\/p>\n<p>Among the proposed responses is the establishment of an international committee of academic institutions who would formulate a \u201cRestatement of International Investment Law\u201d, which would distinguish between those tenets of the law which are generally accepted and those that are contested.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, the letter recommends further consideration of a multilateral appeals mechanism for arbitral decisions in investment disputes. An appeals mechanism has been suggested in other fora in the past as a means to ensure that investment treaty provisions are interpreted by arbitrators with greater consistency; however, the concept has yet to gain endorsement from a sufficient number of states.<\/p>\n<p>An advisory center for developing countries on international investment law is also proposed. Such a center would be intended to help developing countries negotiate investment treaties and respond to investor complaints.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, the letter calls for a \u201cstandstill on <span class='tooltipsall tooltipsincontent classtoolTips68'>FDI<\/span> protectionist measures,\u201d in line with an agreement by G20 countries in November 2008.<\/p>\n<p>A copy of the memo and details on how to include a signature are available from the Vale Columbia Center on Sustainable International Investment website: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vcc.columbia.edu\">www.vcc.columbia.edu<\/a>.<\/p>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips63','Bilateral investment treaty'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips67','Energy Charter Treaty'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips68','foreign direct investment'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips72','Investment Court System'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips76','multilateral investment court'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips100','investissement direct \u00e9tranger'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips104','responsabilit\u00e9 sociale des entreprises'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips106','asociaci\u00f3n p\u00fablica-privada'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips114','Sistema de Tribunales de Inversiones'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips116','European Commission'); <\/script>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Damon Vis-Dunbar 6 February 2009 Faculty at Columbia University in New York have called on U.S. President Barack Obama\u2019s administration to address \u201cimperfections\u201d in the international legal regime that [&hellip;]<script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips67','Energy Charter Treaty'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips100','investissement direct \u00e9tranger'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips116','European Commission'); <\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":15869,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1932],"class_list":["post-223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-itn","tag-bits"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}