Pauwelyn: Different Means, Same End: The Contribution of Trade and Investment Treaties to Anti-Corruption Policy

Joost Pauwelyn (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies - Law) has posted Different Means, Same End: The Contribution of Trade and Investment Treaties to Anti-Corruption Policy (in Anti-Corruption Policy: Can International Actors Play a Constructive Role?, Susan Rose-Ackerman ed., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This chapter claims that anti-corruption policy and trade and investment treaties pursue the same ultimate goals, albeit through different means. The chapter has two objectives. Firstly, it surveys how the international trade and investment regimes at least indirectly contribute to anti-corruption policy. In both regimes, awareness of and arguments related to corruption have increased considerably especially since the entry into force of the UN Convention Against Corruption in 2005. Secondly, the chapter assesses what lessons may be learnt for a more effective enforcement of anti-corruption rules from World Trade Organization (WTO) and investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms. To date, in both the trade and investment regime, corruption is predominantly invoked by defending states in an attempt to justify trade restrictions or escape investment protection liability. So far, fewer (in the WTO, no) complainants have challenged corrupt practices. Design features of WTO and investor-state dispute settlement explain this discrepancy. Investor-state arbitration is the more likely avenue for individual corruption complaints. That said, also WTO corruption complaints or complaints under Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), especially those of a more systemic nature, remain possible, in particular once the 2012 Revised Government Procurement Agreement will have entered into force.