Foreign Investment Issues and WTO Law - Dealing with Fragmentation while waiting for a Multilateral Framework

Julien Chaisse, World Trade Institute, Bern
Philippe Gugler, University of Fribourg

Article comments

orders@editions-edis.ch / www.editions-edis.ch

Abstract

This chapter explores the provisions affecting investment in the existing WTO obligations. Worldwide economic integration is not being achieved via expansion of international trade and Foreign Direct Investment acting as separate channels, but rather as two interrelated phenomena that act together and reinforce one another. The previous failures to establish a miltilateral framework for investment combined with the increasing volume of investment and the corolary need of a regulation lead to come back to the existing regulation of investment within WTO. The WTO handles two major agreements that address investment directly: the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and the Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIMS). TRIPs provides protection for intangible assets that form the basis of the activities of multinational corporations. WTO investment provisions are however limited in scope and lack coherence. Based on the findings, the policy lessons for future prospects are drawn notably on the GATS form a multilateral agreement on investment could adopt.