Global Environmental Governance (GEG) is the sum of organizations, policy instruments, financing mechanisms, rules, procedures and norms that regulate the processes of global environmental protection. Since environmental issues entered the international agenda in the early 1970s, global environmental politics and policies have been developing rapidly. The environmental governance system we have today reflects both the successes and failures of this development. It has become increasingly clear that the GEG system, as we know it, has outgrown its original design and intent.

Global Environmental Governance: A Reform Agenda

https://coreybradshaw.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/giam-et-al-2010-biol-conserv.pdf

Future habitat loss and the conservation of plant biodiversity

Investment treaties are some of the most controversial but least understood instruments of global economic governance. Public interest in international investment arbitration is growing and some developed and developing countries are beginning to revisit their investment treaty policies. The Political Economy of the Investment Treaty Regime synthesises and advances the growing literature on this subject by integrating legal, economic, and political perspectives. Based on an analysis of the substantive and procedural rights conferred by investment treaties, it asks four basic questions. What are the costs and benefits of investment treaties for investors, states, and other stakeholders? Why did developed and developing countries sign the treaties? Why should private arbitrators be allowed to review public regulations passed by states? And what is the relationship between the investment treaty regime and the broader regime complex that governs international investment? Through a concise, but comprehensive, analysis, this book fills in some of the many "blind spots" of academics from different disciplines, and is the first port of call for lawyers, investors, policy-makers, and stakeholders trying to make sense of these critical instruments governing investor-state relations.

The Political Economy of the Investment Treaty Regime

Will the next generation of preferential trade and investment agreements undermine prevention of noncommunicable diseases? A prospective policy analysis of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement

Introductory observations Part I. Setting the Framework: 1. The increasing interactions between foreign investment law and international environmental law 2. Conceptualising interactions 3. Synergies 4. Conflicts I - soft-control mechanisms 5. Conflicts II - adjudication mechanisms Part II. Normative Conflicts: 6. Normative priority in international law 7. Foreign investment and the international regulation of freshwater 8. Foreign investment and the protection of biological and cultural diversity 9. Foreign investment and the international regulation of dangerous substances and activities 10. Foreign investment and the climate change regime Part III. Legitimacy Conflicts: 11. Normative priority between different legal systems 12. Environmental measures and expropriation clauses 13. Environmental measures and non-discrimination standards 14. Environmental measures, stability and due process 15. Defence arguments based on environmental considerations Concluding observations.

/pdf/foreign-investment-and-the-environment-in-international-law-21xmv74vxd.pdf

Foreign investment and the environment in international law

Introduction Part I. Historical Evolution of Foreign Investment Protection Law: 1. Origins of international investment law 2. 'The dynamic of a politically oriented law': foreign investment protection in a changing political environment Part II. Contemporary Interaction: Foreign Investment, Imperialism and Environmental Protection: 3. Polarisation of positions 4. Hints at synergy Part III. Foreign Investment Law, Practices and Policy: Future Trends: 5. Transformation in international law: applying developments to foreign investment 6. Paths towards a reconceptualised international law on foreign investment 7. Conclusion: patterns of power in international investment law.

The Origins of International Investment Law: Empire, Environment and the Safeguarding of Capital

/pdf/evolution-in-investment-treaty-law-and-arbitration-2w8658s6xw.pdf

Evolution in investment treaty law and arbitration

There are at least two ways in which legal scholarship might be approached. One might ask what the law on a particular subject is. This question invites doctrinal inquiry through an examination of authoritative sources internal to a legal system. Alternately, one might ask whether the law on a particular subject matter is desirable or just. This normative inquiry typically begins with a characterisation of what the law on a given subject is, but its primary objective is the evaluation of law by external, normative criteria. Arbitral tribunals charged with interpreting and applying international investment treaties (IITs) continue to grapple with legal concepts such as ‘fair and equitable treatment’ and ‘indirect expropriation’. Different tribunals have interpreted common treaty language in distinct ways; for example, in an earlier work I argue that tribunals have used six, identifiably distinct approaches to distinguish indirect expropriation from legitimate non-compensable regulation. It would be useful to be able to examine which interpretations were more desirable – in a normative sense – and which were inadvisable. This chapter presents a framework for normative evaluation of interpretations of the substantive protections of foreign investment contained in IITs.

Evolution in Investment Treaty Law and Arbitration: Outline of a normative framework for evaluating interpretations of investment treaty protections

International investment and climate change intersect in a number of ways. There is immense potential for investment in carbon markets, renewable energy sources, and low carbon technology. There is also, however, the potential for international investment law to frustrate the implementation of climate change mitigation measures. This paper examines recent investor challenges to environmental regulation and argues that a similar approach to climate change-related regulation can be expected. The interaction of these international legal regimes will have significant implications for achieving global carbon emissions reductions, and, as such, this paper argues for a better alignment of their objectives. It points to the need for a shift in international investment law to meet global environmental challenges of the 21st century and argues for the inclusion of provisions in international investment agreements that will assist with the transition to a low carbon economy.

Kate Miles

Papers

The Origins of International Investment Law: Empire, Environment and the Safeguarding of Capital

Evolution in investment treaty law and arbitration

Evolution in Investment Treaty Law and Arbitration: Outline of a normative framework for evaluating interpretations of investment treaty protections

International Investment Law and Climate Change: Issues in the Transition to a Low Carbon World

Innovative Financing: Filling in the Gaps on the Road to Sustainable Environmental Funding