This meeting brings together high-level speakers to examine the European Union's investment treaty making practice in global context. While the EU's ongoing negotiations for a Transatlantic Trade and Investment with the United States have grabbed the headlines, little attention in Europe has been given to the similar agreements the EU has already completed with Canada and Singapore. This meeting offers an opportunity to examine the policy driving the EU's international investment policy and to analyse the legal significance of the texts the EU is drafting.
The meeting will feature three panels:
Panel One: The Object and Purpose of Europe's Investment Treaties
What goals are the EU and its treaty partners seeking to achieve through these treaties and does their design seem likely to achieve those goals? What do we know about the relationship between investment treaties, FDI growth and the decision-making of investors? To the extent that the EU is developing an investment policy of its own, how is this being reflected in the ongoing treaty making of the Member States?
Panel Two: Analyzing the Texts - Substantive Protections
Looking at the texts of the EU's draft treaties with Canada, Singapore and the United States, this panel addresses two questions:
1. What do the texts tell us about the direction the EU is taking in its treaty-making practice?
2. What do we know about the meaning and likely application of these texts based upon our knowledge of treaties which they resemble or from which they seem to depart?
Panel Three: Analyzing the Texts - Jurisdiction & Dispute Settlement
This panel will look at key procedural provisions of the EU's draft treaties and ask similar questions to Panel Two: What do the texts tell us about the direction the EU is taking in regard to dispute settlement in its treaties? And what do we know about this approach based upon our knowledge of other treaties which the EU treaties resemble (or from which they seem to depart)?
