Foreign investment in the WTO

Abstract

This article explores the application of the policy science concepts of ‘policy frames’ and ‘policy transfer’ as explanatory tools in the study of law and legal reform. It does so by examining the transformation in international law of foreign investment issues from a state-centred classical international law frame, within which foreign investment appeared as a property issue and protection of property as the central objective of law, to a market-centred neo-liberal frame, under which foreign investment is regarded as a ‘trade’ issue and growth-oriented liberalization of trade the central objective of law. This transformation can be summarised very crudely as the replacement of a discourse in which states have rights and multinationals have duties, by one in which states have duties and multinationals have rights. However, this transformation is neither complete, nor uncontroversial. This article considers recent efforts to launch negotiations for a multilateral agreement on investment within the WTO from this ‘framing’ perspective and concludes that framing analysis may have useful applications in the study of law.