Shortly before the 5th Ministerial Conference of the WTO the controversy about a multilateral investment agreement has intensified. In fear of such an agreements’ negative impact, more than 70 developing countries expressed criticism or disapproval of such an agreement within the WTO. Earlier this year more than one hundred NGOs worldwide jointly declared their opposition to a start of negotiations towards a new investment agreement.
Numerous case studies of past foreign investments show that there often is a direct conflict between the commercial investment and the social and developmental interests of the targeted countries. Yet there has not been any study on the environmental impact of foreign investment. On request of the Federal Environmental Agency, the German NGO Forum on Environment and Development therefore commissioned a study on the subject. The resulting literature research by Stefanie Pfahl shows that the environmental impact of foreign investment is not easily predictable. One should therefore remain cautious on this issue, especially in particular since it has not intended to include binding mechanisms for environmental impact assessment in a new agreement on investment.
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