ISDS Case Map
investment | BITs
investment | bilateral investment treaties
This paper surveys the societal dimension of 296 international investment agreements (IIAs) signed by the 30 member countries and of by the 9 non-member countries that participate formally in OECD investment work.
Canada is becoming more engaged in international treaty negotiation and has recently announced that: Canada and Tanzania; Canada and Mongolia; Canada and Madagascar; Canada and Indonesia; and Canada and Vietnam have agreed to begin negotiations towards a Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA).
Venezuela plans to renegotiate a bilateral investment treaty with the Netherlands because oil companies have started "abusing" the agreement, Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez said on Wednesday.
The US wants to include labour and environment standards in the proposed bilateral investment agreement with India. While India wants to structure the pact on the lines of similar agreements that it has with other nations, the US wants to structure it on the lines of the investment chapter in the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta).
While media coverage of the China-NZ Free Trade Agreement has focused almost entirely on the possible dollar gains, scant attention has been paid to the equally valid exposure of New Zealand to compensation claims -- should any NZ government be so bold in future as to pass laws or regulations that a foreign investor feels will impact on profitability.
The Rudd government is considering giving cashed-up Chinese companies the same investment rights enjoyed by the US in a bid to revitalise free-trade talks.
Charles Roxborough, who leads management consultancy McKinsey & Company's global corporate and investment banking practice, estimates that by 2020 sovereign wealth funds, of which some of the richest are located in the Middle East and north Africa (MENA) region, will have invested a staggering $7000bn in capital markets. “They're reshaping strategies at banks and intermediaries,” he says. He believes that hedge funds, Asian central banks and sovereign wealth funds have tripled their market position since 2000 and now make about 5% of global investments.
Germany's decision to introduce controls on investments from the South in strategic domestic sectors is yet another indicator of growing protectionism in European and other industrialised countries against the neo-liberal globalisation they once masterminded.
While it is a US company, Exxon Mobil is entitled to invoke protection under the Netherlands-Venezuela Investment Promotion and Protection Convention, which guarantees resolution of Exxon Mobil's dispute with Venezuela in the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).
Costa Rican lawmakers are divided over who makes a better investor in their country, the United States or the European Union, according to a recent questionnaire.
