Dear Colleagues,
UNCTAD has just released a special issue of its Investment
Policy Monitor exploring investment laws around
the world.
For many countries investments laws are a core policy instrument to promote
and regulate investment. Together with international investment agreements
(IIAs), they constitute the basic legal framework for cross-border investment
in many countries. Often, these laws and IIAs contain similar provisions.
UNCTAD research finds that at least 108 countries have an investment law
as a core instrument to govern investment, almost all of which are either
a developing country or an economy in transition. Even though investment
laws generally share the same objectives, their content and overall approaches
differ significantly.
Key findings from this study include:
- Most investment laws have investment promotion as their
main objective, while only a few also deal with investment facilitation.
- Sustainable development is an explicit goal only in a
small minority of them.
- Investment laws tend to show an imbalance between the
coverage of investor rights and obligations.
- Investment laws often cover the same issues as IIAs and
more than half of the laws provide access to international arbitration.
The importance of investment laws calls for a deeper analysis
of their content and their coherence with other investment-related policies
and international investment treaties.
For more details on these and other findings I invite you to download the
Special Issue of the Investment Policy Monitor here.
James X. Zhan
Director, Investment
& Enterprise
United Nations Conference on Trade & Development
http://investmentpolicyhub.unctad.org
http://www.worldinvestmentreport.org/
(World Investment Reports)
____
AIB-L is brought to you by the Academy of International Business.
For information: http://aib.msu.edu/community/aib-l.asp
To post message: [log in to unmask]
For assistance: [log in to unmask]
AIB-L is a moderated list.
