If we were building the investment treaty regime from scratch today, what policy problems should the regime seek to solve, and how should it contribute to solving them?

The answer to this core question points to existing problems of international investment governance; issues where cooperation between states is both desirable and necessary.

This report divides investment governance policy problems into three categories: (a) issues related to the encouragement and support of sustainable investment, (b) issues related to the impacts of investment projects, and (c) issues of investment governance, institutions, and international cooperation. For each category, the paper assesses whether a treaty could play a useful role and highlights questions that require further consideration, investigation, and clarification.

Rethinking Investment Treaties is a step toward designing future investment treaties and a must-read for policy-makers responding to the most pressing economic, environmental, and social policy problems of the 21st century.

The report authors and leading experts from international institutions and academia unpacked the report's key findings and policy guidance in a webinar on May 30, 2024. Since then, IISD has advanced the conversation through bespoke sessions at the 2024 Investment Policy Forum and government workshops.

In June 2025, we launched a public consultation on the rethinking of investment treaties, seeking input on policy priorities and design from policy-makers, investors, experts, academics, and other members of the investment community.

We published the findings from the consultation in a summary report in March 2026. The consultation suggests that investment treaties should be redesigned to focus more on ensuring investments deliver genuine public goods—which is not the case with the current model focused on shielding foreign investors—and to better interact with national laws for settling disputes between investors and states.

In this report, our experts explore why and how to phase out oil and gas. The primer covers scientific scenarios, equity principles, economic risks, supply-side policies, legal barriers, and discussions in international forums. It recommends next steps for governments, international processes, and other stakeholders.

Recommendations include:

1. Stop issuing oil and gas licences. There is no room for new oil and gas fields under a 1.5°C warming limit. New production will either drive dangerous levels of warming or crash in value when climate action destroys demand.
2. End public finance and subsidies to oil and gas production. Use valuable public resources to scale up clean energy and support people, not fossil fuels. Transform national oil companies’ business models from barrels to electrons.
3. Make national phaseout plans as part of the next round of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement due in 2025. Global oil and gas production falls at least 65% from 2020 to 2050 in credible 1.5°C-aligned pathways. An equitable distribution of effort takes into account human rights, historic responsibility, and social and economic capacity.
4. Remove legal barriers to phase-out, like the thousands of investment treaties that allow oil and gas companies to privately sue governments for implementing climate policies.
5. Mobilize support for vulnerable oil and gas producers in the Global South to restore degraded environments, reskill workers, and seize the opportunities of sustainable growth industries.

In June 2022, world governments adopted the Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies at the World Trade Organization’s 12th Ministerial Conference. The treaty prohibits subsidies in the specific situations where they are the most unequivocally dangerous for the sustainability of fishing. Today, WTO members are looking to strengthen this historic agreement with new, broader rules on subsidies that contribute to overfishing and overcapacity more generally.

These disciplines aim to ensure that the financial support provided by governments to their fishing sector does not lead to excessive fishing pressure. As such, they have the potential to make an essential contribution to the protection of marine resources, as well as the livelihoods, food security, and development prospects of populations who depend on healthy fish stocks. While these additional rules could not be agreed at the WTO’s 13th Ministerial Conference earlier in 2024, WTO members came closer than ever to reaching consensus and landing a deal on this crucial sustainable development priority.

As WTO members reflect on the way forward in these negotiations, this update provides an overview of the draft text that constitutes the basis of current talks, which was circulated to WTO members by the chair of the Rules Negotiating Group, Ambassador Gunnarsson of Iceland, on April 12, 2024. After providing some background on the recent history of negotiations and the current state of play, the update describes and explains succinctly the new rules that are envisaged, and it provides contextual information to help readers understand the dynamics that have led to particular provisions in the draft text. For each main component of the proposed new rules, a summary box is provided to outline the key elements of the disciplines. Finally, the update concludes by highlighting a few key considerations about the draft text from a sustainable development perspective.

As the impacts of climate change and climate-related shocks become more unpredictable and severe, countries are increasingly using NAP processes to design and build resilient strategies – and learn from them. Monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) systems are critical to enable countries to understand if NAP processes work, how they work and for whom, and how to improve actions based on the insights gained. Continuously learning from NAP processes actions and adjusting strategies accordingly is crucial to improve the effectiveness of adaptation and to avoid negative unintended effects from policies and interventions.

MEL systems for NAP processes are also an important source of information for processes under the Paris Agreement – including assessing collective progress on the global goal on adaptation through the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience, and relatedly the adaptation section of Biennial Transparency Reports.

This toolkit for MEL for NAP processes provides practical guidance for the development and continuous improvement of MEL systems for national adaptation processes. It is designed for government actors coordinating NAP processes, along with stakeholders and development partners supporting adaptation planning and implementation. This toolkit provides flexible yet concrete guidance on the planning, implementation, and revision of MEL systems, regardless of what stage countries are at in their NAP processes or the development and implementation of their MEL system.

The toolkit has been developed in collaboration with the Adaptation Committee.

Artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) is a significant economic sector, employing 20 million people across 80 countries and producing up to 20% of the world's gold supply. The report underscores the urgent need for governments to prioritize responsible ASGM tailings management, particularly the disposal of hazardous materials like mercury that pose significant risks to human health and the environment.

This report first outlines important technical aspects of ASGM, including ore extraction, processing, tailings generation, management, and reprocessing. It also addresses mercury recovery, management, and disposal. Then, the authors examine existing governance frameworks, including guidelines from the United Nations Environment Program. This is followed by recommendations for policy-makers to improve awareness, education, safety, and regulation of ASGM tailings.

Key findings include the need for comprehensive international, regional, and national frameworks for ASGM to promote tailings management and reprocessing. Additionally, it highlights the potential benefits of collaboration between ASGM and large-scale mining sectors, formalization schemes aligned with Sustainable Development Goals, taxation and fiscal incentives, strategic environmental assessments, mercury-free alternatives, and mainstreaming gender-related concerns in tailings management and reprocessing approaches.

Local governments play a crucial role in providing essential services to residents, such as drinking water, wastewater treatment, stormwater management, flood protection, and rural drainage. Traditionally, these services rely on grey infrastructure, like dams, pipes, and treatment facilities. However, there is a growing interest in using natural infrastructure to complement these services, especially in response to the increasing challenges posed by climate change.

Several jurisdictions in Canada, including the City of Nelson, Halifax Regional Municipality, and EPCOR, based in Edmonton, Alberta, are taking the lead on successful natural infrastructure implementation. These cases serve as models for others, showcasing effective policy changes in different administrative, jurisdictional, and geographic settings.

This report provides analysis and case studies that highlight how strategic environmental assessment (SEA) can improve mining sector governance.

Not to be confused with environmental and social impact assessments (ESIA), which apply to individual projects, SEA applies more broadly and is defined by the OECD as a range of analytical and participatory approaches that aim to integrate environmental considerations into policies, plans, and programs, and evaluate the interlinkages with economic and social considerations.

SEA can improve mining governance by

• providing better insight into environmental, economic, and social trade-offs, increasing the likelihood of positive outcomes;
• raising awareness about unsustainable development options to prevent costly mistakes and conflicts;
• increasing understanding of the cumulative impacts of multiple smaller developments and the opportunity to improve the coherence between projects;
• enhancing credibility of government decisions, leading to more public trust in the planning process and more support for plan implementation.

Are South Africa's energy subsidies aligned with its objectives for the energy sector and transition? Will subsidies help South Africa deal with its loadshedding and electricity sector crisis?

This report is an economic valuation of the expansion of the Parques del Río Norte in Medellín, Colombia. The project, spearheaded by the Secretariat of Physical Infrastructure (SIF) of Medellín and the C40 Cities Finance Facility (CFF), seeks to mitigate issues such as river erosion, water pollution, flooding, and urban heat islands.

Through an integrated cost-benefit analysis, it was found that over 30 years, the park would generate significant benefits for Medellín, with a return of USD 1.67 for every dollar invested. These benefits include reduced flood risk, improved environmental quality, economic gains from increased retail revenue and property values, and enhanced human health and well-being from increased physical activity and better air quality.

The report highlights key recommendations, including investing in nature-based infrastructure (NBI) along the river to mitigate flood damages, ensuring continuous maintenance of the park for optimal benefits, and implementing further measures to protect the city from climate change impacts, as well as utilizing Medellín as a scalable example for combatting urban challenges through NBI.