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8 - North–South issues of foreign direct investments in the WTO: is there a middle-of-the-road approach?

from PART II - Insights into the World Trade Organization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2009

Mitsuo Matsushita
Affiliation:
Professor Tokyo University
Steve Charnovitz
Affiliation:
George Washington University, Washington DC
Debra P. Steger
Affiliation:
University of Ottawa
Peter Van den Bossche
Affiliation:
Universiteit Maastricht, Netherlands
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Summary

Introduction

As yet there is no agreement on foreign direct investment (FDI) in the WTO. As discussed later, however, the Ministerial Conference held in Doha in the autumn of 2001 adopted a resolution that there would be a negotiation on investment if consensus is achieved on the ‘modalities’ of negotiation. It is too premature to predict whether there will be such an agreement and, if there is, what shape this will take. However, globalization has progressed at an unprecedented speed in the past several decades and FDI has been one of the prime movers of globalization of the world economy. This necessitates some considerations for a comprehensive international agreement on FDI.

However, there is a sharp division of views with regard to the desirability of introducing a comprehensive agreement on FDI in the WTO. There are divergent views even among developed country members and among developing country members – one cannot easily draw a line between developed and developing country members and say that the former are for an FDI agreement and the latter are against it. Nevertheless, it is true that a sceptical sentiment on a comprehensive FDI agreement in the WTO is more prevalent among developing country members and, if the WTO is to incorporate an agreement on FDI in a future round, a compromise of the differing views of developed and developing country members must somehow be forged.

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Information
Law in the Service of Human Dignity
Essays in Honour of Florentino Feliciano
, pp. 76 - 89
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2005

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