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Dear WIN Members, 

It is my pleasure to share with you UNCTAD's IIA Issues Note entitled: "
The rise of regionalism in international investment policymaking: 
consolidation or complexity?" 

Today, at least 110 countries are involved in 22 regional negotiations. 
 This follows the conclusion of eight regional IIAs during 2012, involving 
49 countries from Asia, Europe, North and South America. 

Regionalism brings challenges and opportunities. The current approach to 
regionalism leads to a multiplication of treaty layers, making the network 
of international obligations even more complex and prone to overlap and 
inconsistency. 

However, regionalism can also provide an opportunity for rationalization 
of the IIA regime. A recent UNCTAD analysis of nine selected regional 
negotiations found that they could replace close to ten per cent of 
today's BITs network: if parties to these nine negotiations (i.e. those 
where BITs-type provisions are on the agenda) opted to replace their 
respective BITs with an investment chapter in the regional agreement, this 
would reduce today's global BIT network by more than 270 BITs. 


* * *


Analysis of overall investment policy developments, both at the national 
and international levels, will be available in UNCTAD's 2013 World 
Investment Report (WIR), to be launched globally on 26th June. The report 
will also present recent global and regional investment trends. The theme 
of the report is "global value chains: investment and trade for 
development". 

With kind regards, 

    James Zhan 
    Director 
    Investment & Enterprise Division 
    United Nations Conference on Trade & Development 
    Palais des Nations, Geneva 
    Tel: +41 22 9175797 
    www.unctad.org/diae 
    www.unctad.org/wir (World Investment Reports)

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