International Private Investment Research Articles

Different pathways of accumulation in mining and conservation displacements in Botswana

Displacements of local populations for resource extraction, energy infrastructure, and conservation are a hallmark of the development state. However, differential impacts from the diverse forces of displacement, owing to their specific material, spatial, and social characteristics, are far from well understood. Southern Africa, in particular, has experienced a wide range of large-scale human displacements in its development history. Through an examination of two histories of community displacement in the Ngamiland district of Botswana, this research evaluates how different logics of development produce divergent personal experiences. The work draws on archival research and interviews with displaced people and local officials in two communities, Khwai and Toteng, that serve as representative case studies for different drivers of displacement: conservation and copper mining, respectively. Conservation displacements are frequently state-led projects while mining displacements are state-sanctioned but corporate-led. Residents of Khwai recall being transported to their current village site outside of the Moremi Game Reserve and becoming subject to conservation and wildlife tourism in the area, which has squeezed them out of leadership positions, access to land, and incorporated them into the industry. Copper mining in the region, conversely, is driven by international private investment. In Toteng, private companies have individually compensated displaced people, rather than provide them with new land. The resulting socio-economic, experiential, and socio-cultural impacts differ dramatically as a result, including increased dispersal of the community, familial tensions, and strategic land acquisitions. The results of the analysis suggest that displacements, while having a common, severely adverse impact on local communities, play out in dramatically different ways. In this case, conservation behaves (paradoxically) more within Marxist industrial models rather than mining.

Arbitral Institutions and the Enforcement of Climate Change Obligations for the Benefit of all Stakeholders: The Role of ICSID

Abstract In 2015, States concluded the landmark Paris Agreement, which committed to a long-term goal of “holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels”. The Paris Agreement galvanises all signatory nations in a common cause — combating climate change and adapting to and investigating its effects, and with enhanced support to assist developing countries to do so. As such, it charts a new course in the global climate effort. The goals of the Paris Agreement will only be achieved through massive investment in pursuit of a common objective. According to the International Finance Corporation, an estimated US$90 trillion investment is required to implement the Paris Agreement. The current regime of international investment agreements (IIAs) provides an invaluable opportunity to promote the investment required to achieve the Paris Agreement objectives, including mitigation, adaptation and transition from fossil fuels. However, users must take care to ensure that investment is, in fact, protected and encouraged, and to maintain critical progress in promoting international climate change policy. ICSID is one of the five arms of the World Bank Group, which recognises that “[c]limate change is a threat to the core mission of the World Bank Group”. The ICSID Convention is also designed to promote international private investment. As such, ICSID sits at an important nexus in this discussion. This article: (i) provides an overview of several influential arbitration decisions relating to international environmental disputes, and the way in which the existing climate change regime uses arbitration as a dispute resolution mechanism; (ii) examines the evolution of investment treaties, prior decisions, especially in the field of renewable energy, and the tools available within IIAs for tribunals to promote the Paris Agreement objectives; (iii) discusses what arbitral institutions have done to date, in terms of tools, procedures, rules and other mechanisms, to promote climate change expertise and facilitate the resolution of disputes in a way that is consistent with climate change concerns; and (iv) considers ICSID's position as an arm of the World Bank, particularly in light of the WBG Climate Change Action Plan commitment to scaling up climate action and aligning internal processes with intentionally agreed climate change goals.

Cost-Benefit Analysis Theory versus Practice at the World Bank 1960 to 2015

Two cost-benefit analysis methods developed from differing economic situations and analytical objectives in the 1960s and 1970s. The Trade Policy Approach of Ian Little and James Mirrlees analyzed international competitiveness of projects producing private goods and physical infrastructure in markets severely distorted by trade protectionism; it was adopted in 1975 by the World Bank; the multilateral regional development banks followed suit. The Public Finance Approach of Arnold Harberger developed from comparative statics analyses of public projects and policies in the United States and was adopted at the US Agency for International Development and in several Latin American countries. The original Trade Policy Approach included social analysis too tedious for everyday application, leading an efficiency-only version to emerge and be popularized by teaching materials from Price Gittinger and colleagues in the World Bank’s Economic Development Institute. It proved the right method for World Bank use until Washington Consensus reforms, the GATT and WTO reduced price distortions, and slowly restored private international financial flows gave private industry access to international private investment capital. Official Development Assistance (ODA) portfolios responded by refocusing on public goods and market failures, leading to decreased utility of the Trade Policy Approach and decreased use of cost-benefit analysis at the World Bank. A 1990s drive in the World Bank to switch from the Trade Policy Approach to the increasingly relevant Public Finance Approach resulted in an internal manual and operational guidelines, but not a book from a distinguished university press, commonly presumed to signal official Bank policy. It is time for that long-overdue book to be published.

International Investments in the Water Sector

This paper presents the main results of a detailed study carried out on Official Development Assistance (ODA) and international private investment in the water sector from 1995 to 2004. Publicly available datasets from the Development Assistance Committee (DAC), the World Bank, and the Human Development Reports were collected and stored in a database. ODA programmes were analysed individually to separate the water and sanitation subsectors. The study includes a comparative analysis of public and private international investment, focusing specifically on sanitation. It assesses the success of private participation in the sector and evaluates cross-cutting issues in ODA water programmes.

Legal Problems of International Economic Relations. Cases, Materials and Text. By John H. Jackson. St. Paul: West Publishing Co., 1977. Pp. 1097. Index. Documents Supplement, 436 pages. - International Economic Law, 6 vols. (International Private Trade, International Private Investment, Trade Controls for Political Ends, The International Monetary System, Tax Aspects of International Transactions, and Public Controls of International Trade, approximately

Legal Problems of International Economic Relations. Cases, Materials and Text. By John H. Jackson. St. Paul: West Publishing Co., 1977. Pp. 1097. Index. Documents Supplement, 436 pages. - International Economic Law, 6 vols. (International Private Trade, International Private Investment, Trade Controls for Political Ends, The International Monetary System, Tax Aspects of International Transactions, and Public Controls of International Trade, approximately 3400 pages). By Andreas F. Lowenfeld. New York: Matthew Bender. - Volume 73 Issue 4

The Protection of International Private Investment: Nigeria and the World Community and Studies in the Staple Food Economy of Western Nigeria

Journal Article The Protection of International Private Investment: Nigeria and the World Community and Studies in the Staple Food Economy of Western Nigeria Get access The Protection of International Private Investment: Nigeria and the World Community. By David R. Mummery. New York, Washington: Praeger; London: Pall Mall. 1968. 198 pp. Bibliog. Index. (Praeger Special Studies in International Economics and Development.) 125s.Studies in the Staple Food Economy of Western Nigeria. By Rolf Güsten. Preface by H. M. A. Onitiri and W. Marquardt. Munich: Weltforum. 1968. 304 pp. Bibliog. (Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research, Ibadan. IFO-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Mųnchen. Afrika-Studien Nr.30.) DM 38. $9.50. Edward Horesh Edward Horesh Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 46, Issue 2, April 1970, Pages 391–392, https://doi.org/10.2307/2613888 Published: 01 April 1970

The protection of international private investment: nigeria and the world community

The protection of international private investment: nigeria and the world community

The Protection of International Private Investment: Nigeria and the World Community. By David E. Mummery (New York, Washington and London: Frederick A. Praeger, 1968. pp. xxviii, 198. Index. $15.00.)

The Protection of International Private Investment: Nigeria and the World Community. By David E. Mummery (New York, Washington and London: Frederick A. Praeger, 1968. pp. xxviii, 198. Index. $15.00.)