Investment for Sustainable Development
Sustainable development is an investment issue. Capital is needed to alleviate poverty, create jobs, accelerate the clean energy transition and allow for the development of much-needed infrastructure to provide goods and services for all. Foreign direct investment (FDI) is an important source of that capital.
But investment does not come without risks. How can we ensure investments are made responsibly, without harming people, the environment or the local economy?
IISD works with governments and civil society to develop and improve legal and policy tools focusing on the critical linkage between investment and sustainable development. We look for and provide new approaches to ensure that investment law and policy advance environmentally sound investment that generates broad socioeconomic benefits. In particular, IISD experts examine how the rules and institutions that govern international investment flows can be improved to benefit developing countries.
- Newsletter
Investment Treaty News Quarterly (ITN), Volume 8, Issue 4, December 2017
Investment Treaty News (ITN) is IISD’s flagship quarterly journal on international investment law and policy.
Read More - Commentary
A Risky Tango? Investment facilitation and the WTO Ministerial Conference in Buenos Aires
Investment facilitation—if structured right—could reshape global investment law frameworks for the better. However, this solution-oriented cooperative approach is not well-suited for the WTO.
Read More - Report
Investment Laws of ASEAN Countries: A comparative review
This report compares the investment laws of the 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states, focusing on basic questions relating to the function of investment laws in each country.
Read More - Report
Contracts for Sustainable Infrastructure: Ensuring the economic, social and environmental co-benefits of infrastructure investment projects
This report defines sustainable infrastructure, outlines its expected characteristics and co-benefits, and presents why governments must and how they can integrate sustainability into public–private partnerships (PPP) and other infrastructure contracts.
Read More - Commentary
Is “Moonlighting” a Problem? The role of ICJ judges in ISDS
Sitting judges of the International Court of Justice have worked as arbitrators in at least 90 investor–state dispute settlement cases. This commentary presents new data and examines the implications.
Read More - Paper
Towards an Indicative List of FDI Sustainability Characteristics
Based on a review of 150 instruments, ranging from international investment agreements to codes of multinational enterprises, this paper identifies ten core characteristics of sustainable FDI and twenty emerging sustainable FDI characteristics widely accepted across ten stakeholder groups
Read More - Blog
Hunger Is On the Rise: Here are three ways to stop it
Hunger levels are rising. Carin Smaller explores how technology could help tackle climate change and end hunger.
Read More - Blog
China’s Largest Arbitration Institution Adopts its First Investment Arbitration Rules
China’s new rules for investment arbitration are not yet publicly available in English. We present an advanced draft of the rules, and explain why they matter.
Read More - Report
Assessing the Impacts of Investment Treaties: Overview of the evidence
Investment treaties grant powerful legal rights to foreign investors. Foreign investors’ ability to frame plausible multimillion-dollar claims against a wide range of host government actions—and the fact that these claims are adjudicated through a system of private arbitration—has made investment treaties controversial. This scoping study seeks to provide an overview and assessment of existing evidence of investment treaties’ impacts.
Read More - Policy Brief
The Rise of Agricultural Growth Poles in Africa: Investment in Agriculture Policy Brief #6
Africa has seen the emergence of 36 agricultural growth poles and 9 corridors over the past 15 years. They cover at least 3.5 million hectares of land in 23 countries. Ensuring that the new wave of agropoles and growth corridors is effective requires robust policies, laws and practices to ensure that a possible new trend of investment helps Africa achieve the sustainable development goals the continent has set.
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