World Trade Forum

Over the last two decades, few areas of international economic law and policy have experienced such tectonic changes as international investment. The transformations affecting the international investment scenario have been profound and multi-dimensional. They relate not only to the direction of the flows of international investment, but also to the nature of international investors and, above all, to the international rules and disciplines governing investment activity. Investment flows no longer move exclusively in a North-South direction. Emerging developing and transition economies have become main investors in developed countries, and not just mere recipients of investment flows. A new political economy of international investment has also been generated as new kind of investors – such as sovereign wealth funds and State enterprises - have also appeared in the international investment scene.

Investment has also become one of the most dynamic areas of international economic law. This has been the result of the negotiation of a patchy but extensive network of International Investment Agreements (IIAs) around the globe, and of the increasing application of these agreements to address conflicts surging between foreign investors and States hosting the investment. By 2010, according to UNCTAD, the number of existing IIAs was over 3,000, and the cumulative number of known treaty-based investor-State disputes submitted to international arbitration was more than 350.

Despite the ever deeper interaction between international investment and trade, investment law has tended to evolve separately from the regulatory regime governing international trade. Experts from both fields all too rarely interact with one another. This has fuelled an artificial and unduly segmented vision of these two fundamental pillars of international economic law and policy. Despite their particular features and complexities, international trade and investment are no longer two competing but rather complementary ways to serve and integrate international markets.  There is, accordingly, a genuine need to assess and study both subject areas through a more integrated lens and to strive to identify and exploit the natural synergies between them.

The year 2010 has seen the launch of the WTI’s “International Investment Initiative” (“I3”), a programme aimed at promoting research, advanced training, policy advice and dialogue in the dynamic field of international investment law and policy. Within this context, and considering the significant transformations referred to above, the WTI’s 2011 World Trade Forum aims to tap into the pluri-disciplinary expertise of some of the world’s leading trade and investment experts and explore ideas and solutions to the most central challenges arising from the evolving landscape of international investment flows, rule-making and jurisprudence.
 
The one and a half day Forum will be structured along six blocs dealing respectively with:

• (i)    new paradigms in the economics and political economy of international investment activity;

• (ii)    the interaction between international trade and investment regulation;

• (iii)    the challenge of fostering greater coherence in international investment law;

• (iv)    the policy and rule-making challenges arising from the growth in investment litigation;

• (v)    the quest for greater balance between investment protection and liberalisation and other public policy objectives; and

• (vi)    ways forward for the international investment regime.

While the World Trade Forum is open for participation, the number of participants is limited and there is a need to register. For registration, please fill in the form (in the grey panel on your right-hand side) and send it to gaby.hofer(at)wti.org