Towards the corporatization of the international investment agenda? A comparative study of the investment provisions of the WTO TRIMs Agreement and NAFTA Chapter 11, with the MAI as a benchmark.

Abstract

Economic growth and, in particular, development resulting from international investment flows, is a typical rhetorical device to justify investment liberalization, while at the same time there are arguments that investment is just another mechanism of capitalist control by industrialized countries. At the same time, there are arguments that investment is just another mechanism of capitalist control by the industrialized countries. What, then, is the international agenda that investment actually pursues?
This paper aims to provide an answer to this question by analyzing the main instruments of investment liberalization. It will also argue that the investment agenda tends towards corporatization. In other words, the holders of capital will be the actors that dictate the rules in the process of investment deregulation, while the States will act only as territorial referents of the same. This constitutes a substantial precedent in the essence and manner of managing international affairs in the world arena.