Synergies and Approaches to Climate Change in International Investment Agreements

Abstract

International investment agreements have always been in the center of critique with regards to the incompatibility of international economic law with climate change policies. The overly simplistic bilateral investment treaties have been gradually being replaced by more textually complex agreements that include specific provisions or chapters on sustainable development and climate change. The European Union has been very active in this process. The present article seeks to provide an overview of the recent treaty practice of the European Union and its present negotiations of future treaties. There it will examine particular approaches in treaty-making practice, i.e. investment protection as enshrined in the fair and equitable treatment standard, and investment liberalization as provided, among others, by the recent EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement. Lastly, it examines how investment liberalization and regulation approaches to investment agreements synergize with climate change policies.