Monthly Archives: May 2019

“Greening” the Belt and Road Initiative? What about People’s Rights?

By CSOs | Statement | May 30, 2019

The second Belt and Road Summit took place in Beijing, China from 25 to 27 April 2019, two years after the first summit was held. Attended by 38 head of states from around the world, United Nation’s Secretary General António Guterres and IMF managing director Christine Lagarde, this year’s summit was bigger than the first.

A joint communique issued at the close of the first summit stated, among other things, that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) aims to advance…

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UNCITRAL and ISDS Reforms: The Divided West and the Battle by and for the Rest

By Anthea Roberts and Taylor St. John | Guest Blog | May 10, 2019

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 non-state actors a chance to analyse these dynamics in real time and to consider not…

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Recent Experiences with Capital Controls

By Kavaljit Singh | Policy Brief # 4 | May 2, 2019

It is difficult to make any generalization on the countries’ experiences as significant heterogeneity exists across countries in terms of type, nature, sequencing, and intensity of capital controls. However, some notable trends are visible. For instance, over the last three decades, there has been a marked shift regarding preference over the types of capital controls, from the earlier quantitative restrictions to price-based controls. The growing preference for using price-based mechanisms is largely in tune with a market-based approach to…

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