The Policy-Making of Investment Treaties in Brazil: Policy Learning in the Context of Late Adoption

Abstract

Brazil has traditionally been one of the only major economies never to have committed to an international investment agreement, an area of global policy dominated by a specific type of agreement, the Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs). This country changed its traditional stance only recently, due in particular to the interest of domestic stakeholders, who were increasingly investing abroad. But when Brazil decided to join the network of investment agreements, it did so on its own terms, employing a model agreement that significantly departs from the globally-disseminated BIT-format. We argue that the design of the Brazilian investment model agreement is the result of a policy learning process that draws extensively both from the experiences and foreign policy preferences of Brazil as well as from negative experiences of third countries with the traditional BITs.