High-level International Investment Agreements Conference 2024

The Path to Mainstreaming Sustainable Development in IIAs

Over the past decades, new and emerging issues such as environmental protection, climate change, labour rights, public health, and the encouragement of responsible and inclusive investment have started to be addressed in international investment agreements (IIAs). Sustainable development is taking centre stage in reform discussions. Yet, much more is needed to mainstream sustainable development in the international investment regime. Doing so is essential to ensure that international investment governance aligns more widely with contemporary global priorities, providing the international framework to support sustainable and inclusive growth and development.

The path towards mainstreaming sustainable development is difficult to chart. New-generation IIAs are still vastly outnumbered by their unreformed counterparts. Almost nine out of ten IIAs in force were signed before 2012 – the year of the publication of UNCTAD’s first edition of the Investment Policy Framework for Sustainable Development. The piecemeal approach of IIA reform, relying on bilateral renegotiations and amendments, is relatively slow. Against this backdrop, regionalism and mega-regional initiatives have emerged as important drivers for reform. New-generation (mega-)regional IIAs are starting to form building blocks towards widespread consensus on addressing the economic, social and environmental dimensions of investment governance.