đź“… 31 March 2025
Paris, France & Online
The 2025 Investment Treaty Conference, jointly organized by the OECD, UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), is taking place on 31 March 2025 at the OECD Conference Centre in Paris and online.
The event will convene policymakers, legal experts, business leaders, academics, and representatives from civil society to address critical developments in international investment agreement policy and practice. Under the theme “Modernising Investment Treaties to Support the Sustainable Development Goals”, the conference will explore avenues for reforming investment treaties, fostering sustainable development, and enhancing global economic resilience.
Investment treaties have been used for decades to pursue the objectives of governments of the time: Initially, mainly investment protection and the associated expectation to encourage foreign investment. Market access was added as a further objective by some jurisdictions later.
While these objectives remain important and valid, there is a growing consensus to consider new priorities, including:
- Attracting sustainable investment to contribute to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and mobilise private finance into climate-friendly investment projects.
- Rebalancing investment treaties: Framings used in earlier generation treaties can undermine today’s objectives of ensuring balance between investment protection and the right to regulate.
- Reforming investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS): Concerns commonly expressed about the existing ISDS regime include inconsistency in arbitral decisions, lack of predictability, lack of transparency, or increasing costs, among others.
In light of these new objectives, governments are discussing how to modernise their stock of treaties and their treaty policies. This first session presents an opportunity to exchange on the reasons that are leading an increasing number of governments and stakeholders to call for a reform of investment treaties.
