African and the OECD multilateral agreement on investment

Abstract

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries have recently expressed desire to bring the most important elements of bilateral and multilateral agreements, draft codes and declarations relating to foreign direct investments together in one document calculated to establish an international framework of economic cooperation. Such document should, in the view of the OECD countries, particularly aim at (i) liberalization of capital, technology and managerial skill by the removal of trade barriers and restrictions, and (ii) the creation of world-wide regime of protection of foreign investment. In response to that desire, the OECD ministers at their meeting of May 1995 arranged for launching negotiations aimed ultimately at reaching agreement on draft for multilateral agreement on investment. The Report on this study consists of two parts. The first touches briefly on the following regimes of legal protection of foreign investment: (i) UN resolutions; (ii) international customary law, (iii) non-binding draft codes and binding multilateral agreements (iv) bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and (v) domestic legislation on the protection of foreign investments. Part II deals with the MAI draft. It consists of an analytical examination of the MAI provisions, comments thereon and, where appropriate, and suggestions for alternative drafting of some of the articles.