UN Secretary-General António Guterres and world leaders sounded the alarm on debt payments recently at a high-level meeting on debt and liquidity. There are too many high debt payments diverting money needed by poorer countries to tackle the pandemic and its economic downturn, climate change, and the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs). In April 2020, the G20 offered ways and conditions to the poorest…
As many as three explicit interventions for the micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) were announced by the Indian government as part of the post-Covid-19 recovery stimulus programme. These include the long-pending revision in the definition of MSMEs, emergency collateral-free credit, and the promotion of e-market linkages in the times of social distancing. While all three initiatives are welcome, there exist several implications for…
Two innovative investment treaty models developed by major emerging economies came to light in 2015 when Brazil concluded its first Cooperation and Facilitation Investment Agreements (CFIAs, or ACFIs, in its Portuguese-language abbreviation) Since then, both models have been influential in the global debate about options for reforming international investment law for sustainable development.
Now that the financial markets are in turmoil, authorities are providing ever more robust measures and extra capital. But the panic in the financial markets is very much of its own making. The financial industry succeeded for years in fiercely opposing intervention and regulation that would have prevented the current financial distress. Authorities now have to face the resulting weak regulatory framework and restrict…
On September 1, 2019, Argentine President Mauricio Macri imposed capital controls on the foreign exchange market to help control the depreciating peso and counter the rapid decline in foreign exchange reserves. This move comes at a time when the country is gearing up for its elections in October 2019. Is this an attempt to boost the economy that is already struggling with recessionary tendencies…
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 European Union (EU) is keen to enter into a trade agreement with India. EU was formed in 1993, and India was amongst the first countries to establish ties with this political and economic group. A cooperation agreement was signed between them in 1994. A decade later, in 2004, the relationship was upgraded to…
In October 2020, India and South Africa had made a joint proposal to the Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) seeking a temporary waiver of the obligations of Members to implement or apply four forms of intellectual property rights (IPRs) for the prevention, containment, or…
On March 1, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala took over as Director-General of the World Trade Organization. She is the first woman and the first African to serve as the Director-General of the WTO. These are indeed remarkable achievements that need to be noticed and celebrated. As she holds dual Nigerian and US citizenship, Okonjo-Iweala is also the…
For over two decades, India has acquired the reputation of being the ‘pharmacy of the world’ as its strong generic pharmaceutical industry has supplied affordable medicines to the global markets. Exports of medicines from India, which were around a billion dollars at the turn of the century, had increased to over $20 billion in…
It is widely anticipated that a new development finance institution would be announced by India’s Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, as part of her budget proposals to be presented on February 1, 2021. The Union Budget 2021 offers the central government an extraordinary opportunity to address India’s economic and financial challenges amidst the economic slump…
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