CETA and Investment: What Is It About and What Lies Beyond?

Abstract

In this concluding chapter, the authors take a critical overview of the results of the CETA investment negotiations, including but not limited to the issues raised in other Chapters of this book. Our assessment is that much of the drafting of CETA on the balance between investor rights and government policy space will create changes in form, but very limited, if any, changes in substance. The changes to the investor-state dispute settlement system are significant, but have no impact on the basic premise that gives foreign investors broad rights to sue states in international processes disconnected from other elements of domestic law and the interests of other stakeholders. These changes are of more than just form, but their impact will be constrained by the lack of real substantive change we see in the obligations on states and rights of investors. Overall, we see the protection of the investor’s right to profits and property as the ongoing predominant theme, maintaining and in some cases furthering the basic thrusts of prior investment treaties. Significant change will have to wait for another day.