Model green investment treaty: International investment and climate change

Mitigating and adapting to the extraordinary threats posed by climate change will require dynamic responses across all elements of human society. Governments face urgent, unprecedented challenges in this regard, including with respect to regulating foreign investment. The international investment regime was not designed to take account of this reality, however, either substantively or with respect to the settlement of disputes. This article proposes a new approach to foreign investment regulation designed to rectify this systemic failure, in the form of an innovative bilateral investment treaty drafted by a multidisciplinary team of internationally renowned experts. The approach proposes a balanced, reciprocal set of obligations for both investors and host states consistent with the Paris Agreement. To incentivize transformation, moreover, the article argues for investment treaties that demand good governance by investors, establish sufficient policy space for host states (via a sectoral approach that specifically addresses areas such as climate change, water, agriculture, human rights, indigenous peoples and public health), and adopt a flexible, fair, accountable and transparent approach to dispute settlement, including enhanced standards for arbitrators and a Code of Ethics-among other innovations.