Rethinking International Trade and Investment Law

Recent developments have shaken the international trade and investment regime, highlighting flaws and contradictions. The current regime has fostered globalization. The bright side of globalization has seen billions of people emerging from poverty, triggering an unprecedented economic and political growth for many countries. Yet there is a dark side that critics have been trying to more clearly expose: the regime produce winners and losers, but the benefits have not been adequately shared, leaving losers without compensation. Hence, the regime is also to blame for the rising inequalities within and between countries. The striking problem of inequalities suggests that the regime favors corporate interests, while exacerbating social conflictuality. On April 13^th-14^th, 2018, the Institute for Global Law and Policy of Harvard Law School and the Center for the Advancement of the Rule of Law in the Americas at Georgetown University, held a two-day session gathering international economic law scholars and leading social scientists to better conceptualize existing problems and trace new and more effective research trajectories.