Transforming World Trade and Investment Law for Sustainable Development

The 2030 UN Sustainable Development Agenda requires transforming the UN and WTO legal systems, international investment law, and adjudication to realize universal human rights and the 17 agreed sustainable development goals (SDGs). Geopolitical rivalries and trade wars undermine transnational rule of law and effective regulation of market failures, governance, and constitutional failures. Protecting the WTO legal and dispute settlement system is essential for SDGs such as climate change mitigation measures and access to medical supplies and vaccines. Investment law and adjudication must better reconcile governmental duties to protect human rights and decarbonize economies with the property rights of foreign investors. Regional economic orders must promote private-public network governance and civil society participation to stabilize and de-politicize multilevel governance that protects SDGs and global public goods.

Format: Hardback
Length: 368 pages
Publication date: 10 March 2022
Publisher: Oxford University Press

The 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda, aimed at achieving universal human rights and the 17 agreed sustainable development goals (SDGs), necessitates a transformation of the United Nations (UN) and World Trade Organization (WTO) legal systems, as well as international investment law and adjudication. The UN and WTO laws safeguard regulatory competition among diverse neo-liberal, state-capitalist, European ordo-liberal, and developing countries' conceptions of multilevel trade and investment regulation. Nonetheless, geopolitical rivalries and trade wars increasingly erode transnational rule of law and effective market failure, governance, and constitutional failures regulation. Preserving the WTO legal and dispute settlement system remains crucial for achieving SDGs such as climate change mitigation measures and access to medical supplies and vaccines during global health pandemics. Investment law and adjudication must reconcile governmental duties to protect human rights and decarbonize economies with the property rights of foreign investors.

The constitutional, human rights, and environmental litigation in Europe strengthens the legal accountability of democratic governments for safeguarding sustainable development. However, European economic constitutionalism has faced rejection by neoliberalism, China's authoritarian state-capitalism, and many developing countries' governments. As regional economic orders, such as the China-led Belt and Road networks, exhibit heterogeneity and power politics hinder UN and WTO reforms, the US-led neoliberal world order faces the risk of disintegration. To stabilize and de-politicize the global economy, UN and WTO law must promote private-public network governance and civil society participation.

Weight: 674g
Dimension: 242 x 162 x 26 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780192858023