This event was recorded on March 9, 2022.
Negotiations on Investment Facilitation for Development at the WTO
US-Japan Short Takes Series
This event was co-sponsored by the APEC Study Center at Columbia University.
Post-event summary
Mr. Tomaru described the state of plurilateral negotiations among a large cross-section of WTO member states to establish a framework on investment facilitation for development, or IFD. He described IFD as a set of practical measures to facilitate cross-border investment including increasing transparency and predictability, streamlining administrative procedures, and sharing information and best practices. Formal negotiations began in 2020 and are currently expected to conclude at the end of this year. Currently 113 of the WTO’s 164 members are participating in the process including Japan (but not the United States). Discussions are held monthly in hybrid format, with some participants in person and others remote.
Japan supports the IFD because it would expand the number of countries with which Japan has an investment facilitation agreement by about 50 countries. In addition, Japan believes it would enhance the investment environment and revitalize the rulemaking function of the WTO despite the deadlock in the Doha Round of trade negotiations.
Dr. Sauvant said the draft IFD agreement might be the first international investment agreement to refer to sustainable development not merely in its preamble but in its text. The current draft includes provisions asking international investors to incorporate responsible business practices into their strategies, hold meaningful dialogue with stakeholders, and conduct due diligence with respect to their investments – “something which is not very common, if it exists at all in other agreements.” The text could be improved, Dr. Sauvant proposed, by adding “specific technical measures to facilitate investment not only in terms of increasing investment flows … but also make a direct contribution to the economic development of host countries. I am thinking here in particular of supplier development programs.”
About the speakers
Kei Tomaru is a second secretary at the Permanent Mission of Japan to the International Organizations in Geneva, where he works primarily on the areas of trade, investment and development with the World Trade Organization and the International Trade Centre. He has also served with the First North American Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, covering political relations between Japan and the US. He holds a master ‘s degree in public policy from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a bachelor’s degree in North American studies from the University of Tokyo.
About the discussant
Karl P. Sauvant is a resident senior fellow at the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) and lecturer in law at Columbia Law School, where he teaches foreign direct investment and public policy. Sauvant was the founding executive director of the Vale Columbia Center on Sustainable International Investment (CCSI’s predecessor). He has published widely in the international investment area. A German national, Sauvant has served as director of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development's Investment Division. He joined the United Nations in 1973, where he created the prestigious annual World Investment Report, for which he was the lead author until 2004. Sauvant is founder and was an editor (until 2005) of the journal Transnational Corporations. He provided intellectual leadership and guidance to a series of 25 monographs on key issues related to international investment agreements,