Advisory Services and Technical Assistance

Through “I3”, the WTI provides advisory services and technical assistance to governments and works collaboratively with leading inter-governmental and non-governmental organisations and other academic institutions in designing and implementing various capacity building activities in the field of international investment law and policy. 

Expertise:

WTI delivers workshops on Investment drafting and negotiation techniques in Malaysia 

Under the auspices of the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Central Bank of Malaysia, and as part of the International Investment Initiative“I3”” launched by the WTI in 2010, two workshops were delivered by members of the WTI faculty in Kuala Lumpur during the first two weeks of January 2011.

The first workshop focused on the drafting and negotiation techniques used to prepare annexes for investment chapters forming part of preferential trade agreements (PTAs). In some PTAs, the norms and disciplines of the investment chapter apply in principle to all sectors of economic activity, except those activities, sectors or measures explicitly excluded or reserved by the agreement. This is what is known as a “negative list approach”. This approach involves very sophisticated drafting and negotiation techniques, which were precisely the subject of the workshop. The event was attended by more than 70 representatives of various Ministries of the Malaysian government. It forms part of the preparation that Malaysian authorities are undertaking as part of their participation in various key negotiation processes with their major trade and investment partners.

A second workshop focused on the specific topic of financial services, analysing in detail the different approaches, rules and disciplines used in PTA negotiations for this concrete sector. Numerous PTAs contain specific chapters that apply to cross-border trade in financial services and to investment in financial institutions. Financial services often receive such specific treatment as a result of the recognition of the importance of striking an appropriate balance between liberalization of trade in financial services and the need to enable regulatory authorities in all countries to properly oversee financial services operations and ensure the integrity and stability of the financial system.

“For many years the WTI has collaborated with many public and private institutions in Malaysia and in South-East Asia. The delivery of these two workshops, which were requested by different agencies of the Malaysian government, clearly shows the importance of having world-class academic institutions such as the WTI sharing and adapting their specialized expertise to the needs of the public and private sector” said Sufian Jusoh (Research Fellow WTI and Legal Advisor Malaysian Malay Chamber of Commerce).