CISDL Sustainable Trade, Investment & Competition Law Research Programme

How does trade, investment and competition law relate to regional and international development law? What are the primary obligations for states at the national and international level to address trade and environment concerns, and what of trade and other economic development priorities? How are these to be realised? What are the legal tools and can these questions be answered in an integrated manner? What are the implications of trade, investment and competition for related fields of human rights, development and environmental law? How can corporations and inter-governmental organisations complement and assist these efforts and implement their own obligations?

Many states, inter-governmental organisations, corporations and civil society organisations are beginning to address the implications of economic law for sustainable development at the national, regional and international level. This programme aims to support such efforts by clarifying the nature of obligations, offering solutions and case studies and integrating this research in the context of international sustainable development law.

The CISDL Sustainable Trade, Investment & Competition Law Research Programme aims to support and enhance present efforts to better integrate economic law principles with environmental and developmental decision making by states, corporations, civil society and IGOs. The area of sustainable economic law, particularly in relation to developing countries, is gaining growing attention. While WTO trade law alone, with over 20,000 pages of legal text, is not very accessible to the broader public, especially in the details and the specific provisions, sustainable development considerations do need to be much better taken into account. Much existing work on this subject lacks specificity and this programme aims to fill this gap by clarifying the state of current law, but also by proposing better means of implementation at the national, sub-regional, regional and international level.

Please click on one of the following research project buttons to learn more about the ongoing Trade, Investment and Competition research projects:

CISDL LEGAL PROGRAMMES