2016 High-Level International Investment Agreements (IIA) Conference

The current International Investment Agreements (IIAs) regime is multilayered, multifaceted and highly fragmented, and its reform has become a “must”. The IIA regime reform should be guided by sustainable development objectives, focus on critical areas, include actions at all levels, take a systematic and sequential approach, and ensure inclusiveness and transparency. Working towards more coherence in an IIA regime consisting of thousands of agreements is a global challenge that calls for coordinated action from all stakeholders. Providing guidance for this endeavour, the UNCTAD World Investment Report (WIR) 2015 developed an action-oriented road map for sustainable development oriented IIA reform.

The 2016 IIA Conference will bring together a wide range of stakeholders in the international investment and development community and advance the debate on the future direction of the IIA regime. Speakers and participants will discuss key IIA reform issues, bringing in national, regional and interregional perspectives and drawing lessons from the first steps towards IIA reform that are underway in many parts of the world. In so doing, the Conference will implement the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, the outcome document of the Financing for Development (FfD) Summit, which mandates UNCTAD to continue its meetings and consultations with Member States on investment agreements. The Conference will also respond to the FfD outcome document’s recognition that the goal of protecting and encouraging investment should not affect countries’ ability to pursue public policy objectives.

The event will result in a summary documenting the shared view on ways for IIA reform, outlining policy options and actions for key reform areas, and taking stock of the progress towards reform. It will provide best practices and lessons learnt for countries to adapt and adopt.

Issues

• Policy options for an improved global IIA regime
• Paths towards a reform of the current investment dispute settlement mechanisms
• Lessons learnt from the first phase of IIA reform activities (e.g. review of IIAs, development of a new model treaty and negotiations of new, more modern IIAs)
• Action points on how to move IIA reform to the second phase (e.g. addressing the systemic risks and incoherence of the large body of old treaties)