Investment and the Final Act of the Uruguay Round: A Preliminary Stocktaking

Investment and the Final Act of the Uruguay Round: A Preliminary Stocktaking

Published Jan 1999

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This paper aims to provide a preliminary stocktaking of the outcome of the Uruguay Round with regard to the treatment of investment. Doing so is difficult for a number of reasons, not least of which is the fact that investment per se was not placed formally on the negotiating agenda of the Round. Despite the interest of a small number of developed countries to see more comprehensive treatment of investment, the Punta del Este Declaration which launched the Uruguay Round mandated a narrower set of discussions centring on governmental measures in the area of investment deemed to have restrictive and distortive effects on trade, so-called trade-related investment measures or TRIMs. Similarly, while the other two "New Issues" placed on the negotiating agenda of the Round - services and trade-related intellectual property rights - both had important investment dimensions, the development of rules aimed at protecting and liberalizing investment in both areas was not the central focus of the negotiating mandate agreed to in Punta del Este.

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