As more and more countries seek to liberalise their foreign investment regimes to attract global flows of foreign direct investment (FDI), an essential question for policy-makers is no longer just what to reform but also how to reform. How is a reformist government to sell the idea of reform to...

At a time of continuing financial crisis in Asia, the question of the appropriate policies for recovery and for future sustainable development is paramount. One area of particular importance is the treatment of foreign investors. Foreign direct investment (FDI) has played a leading role in many...

Reports on trends in international direct investment tend to focus on recent developments. While such information is clearly of most relevance for policymakers and others interested in the pace and scale of globalisation, it fails to provide any perspective on the nature of globalisation itself....

International investment agreements define commitments on investment protection, but also shed light on how these commitments are to be integrated with other public policy objectives. Investment protection in the context of environmental regulation has been a frequent source of controversy and...

This paper was developed at the request of the OECD Working Party of the Investment Committee to document efforts to date to define and measure green FDI and to investigate the practicability of various possible definitions, as well as to identify investment policy restrictions to green FDI. It...

Government-controlled investors, including state-owned enterprises and sovereign wealth funds, have greatly expanded their international activities in recent years. This paper describes the existing policy landscape of international investments by government-controlled investors under both...

Claims by company shareholders seeking damages from governments for so-called "reflective loss" now make up a substantial part of the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) caseload. (Shareholders’ reflective loss is incurred as a result of injury to “their” company, typically a loss in...

This working paper examines China’s investment policy since the publication of the 2008 OECD Investment Policy Review of China. China remains the largest recipient of FDI among developing countries and FDI continues to play a disproportionately large role in promoting China’s trade,...

Investor-State dispute settlement mechanisms (ISDS) are an important component of most International Investment Agreements (IIAs) and have significant influence on how disputes between States and investors are resolved.<p> This statistical survey of a large sample of 1,660 bilateral investment...</p>