Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 04/2014

The case for a framework agreement on investment

Gary Hufbauer, Sherry Stephenson

March 2014

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

Abstract

Looking at a rear-view mirror, skeptics assert that efforts to create a plurilateral Investment Framework Agreement (IFA) are doomed. We argue that conditions on the ground have changed: in the 2010s, unlike the 1990s, many countries would welcome an IFA under WTO auspices