SCC in NY Conference: IIAs and Sustainable development
SCC Secretary General Annette Magnusson will speak at the10th Annual Columbia International Investment Conference in New York. The title of this year’s conference is “Investment Treaty Reform: Reshaping Economic Governance in the Era of Sustainable Development”.
The conference is organized by Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment and is partnered with UNCTAD, with additional support from the SCC and Baker & McKenzie LLP, and will focus on the role that international investment agreements (IIA) can and should play in international economic governance.
The UNCTAD’s 2015 World Investment Report (WIR), dealing with the reform of the IIA regime, will serve as the basis for this conference where the different panels will dive deeper into the practical steps, reviews and reforms countries have taken to reshape their IIAs.
SCC Secreary General Annette Magnusson is one of the speakers in the first panel “Setting the scene: Objectives of IIAs and Treaty Reform”, dedicated to provide an overview of the core objectives of modern IIAs, as well as the parts of IIAs and IIA reform that can help those objectives.
Key Questions in this session will include:
- What implications does the global sustainable development agenda have for IIAs and the investment regime?
- What can be done to maximize the role of IIAs in mobilizing investment and channeling it towards SDG sectors, while minimizing potential risks?
- Do investment protection standards found in IIAs leave government’s adequate regulatory flexibility to achieve relevant policy objectives?
- If not, what reforms are needed and how can they be accomplished
The panel will be moderated by James Zhan, (UNCTAD) and other speakers are Nathalie Bernasconi-Osterwalder, International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), Thierry Mutombo Kalonji, Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), Annika Stormy-Mildner, Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie e.V. (BDI), and Micheal Tracton, Office of Investment Affairs, United States Department of State.
The conference is held 10-11 November at the Columbia University, New York. The conversation can be followed on Twitter through the hashtag: #CIIC15