Over the past 18 months, multiple Columbia FDI Perspectives have argued for the WTO to initiate negotiations on investment facilitation. A common foundation has been the view that trade and investment are just two sides of the same coin; hence drafting an investment-facilitation agreement is just a matter of replicating its close sibling on trade facilitation. This simplistic view ignores many realities. Trade…
The trade war waged by the United States against China has impacted economic growth and world trade since the fourth quarter of 2018. It implies that trade between the leading economies has slowed and particularly between the European Union, the United States, and China. The cross-border trade of finished products is declining with adverse consequences on the production in these economies. That may explain…
The UNCITRAL debates over ISDS reforms can serve as a real-world laboratory for observing changes in the national interests and policies of different countries, as well as shifts in their geopolitical weight and alignments. As part of a commitment to transparency, UNCITRAL decided to allow a wide range of observers in the room and to make recordings of the debates available. Such transparency gives…
Like many other developing countries, India has seen a continuing focus on improving the ‘ease of doing business’ to revive her stagnant manufacturing sector. This can be explained by the neoliberal analytical framework underlying the export-led growth strategy, which has been the preferred model for successive Indian governments since the drastic and comprehensive policy shift in 1991. This saw trade liberalisation being accompanied by…
The European economy is facing one of its greatest challenges in recent times. It ranges from slow economic growth, the Brexit, political crises and the emergence of right-wing populist forces, to a possible GDP slowdown contagion emanating from Germany. Some disagreements and uncertainty regarding Maastricht policies are adding to the risks for the economy of the old continent. International organizations have emphasized the need…
In mid-January 2018, the US president declared the trade war against China with the announcement of the tariff tax of 20% for imports of washing machines and 30% for solar panels. In March, he applied a tax on steel imports of 25% and aluminum of 10%. After that, since April, the US and China are engaged in the biggest trade war in history. With…
The 11th Ministerial Conference (MC11) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) held in Buenos Aires ended without taking decisions on any of the issues on which the members of the organisation have been engaged on over the past several months. The organization has thus been left virtually without any substantive work programme and this should be considered as a failure of the organisation to…
The Xiamen BRICS Summit held in September 2017 was the ninth since this formation of emerging economies met in Yekaterinburg in June 2009. When the four original members of the formation (South Africa joined in 2011) met in the shadow of the worst economic downturn since the 1930s, there was a huge opportunity before the emerging economies to reshape the post-war multilateral economic governance,…
The recently issued Banking Regulation (Amendment) Ordinance is perceived by many as a magic bullet to resolve the NPA crisis that has overtaken the banking sector in India. The Ordinance authorises the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to initiate insolvency resolution in respect of a defaulting company under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, to issue directions to banks to resolve their stressed assets…
In an unprecedented case, Eli Lilly initiated an amended investor-state-dispute-settlement (ISDS) claim against the government of Canada in 2013 after Canada’s highest courts upheld invalidations on new therapeutic use patents for two chemical compounds – olanzapine and atomoxetine, the active pharmaceutical ingredients of Strattera and Zyprexa respectively. The courts had ruled that Canada’s well established “promise utility doctrine” was not satisfied because the evidence…
The health spa and casino complex in Baden-Baden in Germany was the venue for two-day meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors held on 17 and 18 March. Baden-Baden is better known as a luxurious spa town with expensive shops and Konditoreien (pastry shops), where rich Russians and others like to spend their (laundered or tax evaded) money. However, the G20 ministers and…
The Second Advance Estimates of National Income, 2016-17 produced by the Central Statistical Office (CSO) show that demonetisation has had no impact on the country’s economic growth. According to the CSO, Indian economy grew by a healthy 7% in the third quarter of the current financial year, quite contrary to even the expectations of even the Finance Ministry. The Economic Survey had observed, “demonetisation…
My 2016 report to the UN General Assembly (A/71/286) on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order is devoted to tax evasion, tax fraud and tax havens. In this report, I recall that the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights do not contain any provision concerning the obligation of businesses to pay their fair share of taxes. There is no…
Plenty has been written on the state of the health services in the nation’s capital, both in popular press and academic reports, and many of these have also spoken of the suffering that a common woman/man has to undergo in the city’s hospitals and nursing homes. Unfortunately, these news stories and reports have ceased to appeal to the consciousness of their readers, especially the…
The contemporary model of international investment agreements (IIAs), enforced through investor-state arbitration, is in turmoil, if not in crisis. An UNCTAD International Investment Arbitration Issues Note published in mid-2014 identified four pathways that had emerged: maintaining the status quo; disengaging from the regime; introducing selective adjustments; and engaging in systematic reform. In recent years Brazil, South Africa and India, three of the large and…
On September 1, the Argentine government led by President Mauricio Macri imposed capital controls in a bid to stem the fall in the foreign exchange reserves and the peso currency. This unexpected move was initiated soon after the authorities spent nearly $3 billion of forex reserves to repay short-term debt and to protect the…
The ongoing liquidity crisis in India’s shadow banking sector is intensifying. The troubles that started with defaults by Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Limited (IL&FS) last year are far from over as the sector continues to face a severe liquidity crisis. If tight liquidity conditions persist over the next three quarters, it may turn…
John Taylor (“Choice of new IMF head must not be dictated by the old EU order”, August 12) points out that the International Monetary Fund needs new leadership from outside the European bloc to address the multiple challenges facing the world today. As I have spent a considerable part of my professional life…
Fifty years ago, on July 19, 1969, Indira Gandhi, who was both Prime Minister and Finance Minister at that time, decided to nationalize 14 major privately-owned commercial banks of India. Banks with a deposit base of over Rs500 million were selected for nationalization while foreign banks were excluded. Six more private banks were later…
Further to your report “India’s shadow banking crisis sparks credit crunch” (FT.com, July 3): even more worrisome is the danger of the ongoing liquidity squeeze in the shadow banking sector turning into a more serious solvency issue. Several liquidity-starved shadow banks have already initiated the sale of loan portfolios and assets to meet repayment…
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