High -Level International Investment Agreements Conference
Statement – South Centre
Doha – Qatar, October 2026
On the occasion of the High-Level International Investment Agreements Conference during the United Nations Trade and Development’s (UNCTAD) World Investment Forum 2026 in Doha, the South Centre reaffirmed its commitment to building a fairer, more inclusive international economic architecture.
For over 30 years, our work has emphasized that success in investment policy is not measured by capital volumes alone, but by better investment—investment that builds domestic productive capacity, creates decent jobs, and drives a just green transition.
Key takeaways from our statement:
🔹 Holistic Reform over Procedural Tweaks: Investment governance must not operate as an isolated system designed solely for investor protection. Procedural improvements in dispute settlement are not enough; legitimate climate, health, and social measures require robust legal safeguards alongside enforceable investor responsibilities.
🔹 Modernizing the Existing Treaty Network: Better drafting in new agreements is insufficient while outdated treaties with broad survival clauses remain in force. States must coordinate on joint interpretations, amendments, consolidation, and terminations.
🔹 UNCTAD’s Leadership & Reform Principles: We commend UNCTAD’s sustained leadership, particularly through frameworks like the Guiding Principles for IIA Reform, which bridge the gap between national development ambitions and actionable treaty reform while safeguarding States’ duty to regulate.
🔹 Strengthening South–South Cooperation: The South Centre continues to partner closely with UNCTAD through policy research, technical assistance, and capacity-building to support developing countries in reforming their investment regimes according to domestic development priorities.
CAUSATION, STANDARDS OF PROOF AND VALUATION UNDER UNCITRAL WORKING GROUP III: Reducing Uncertainty and Decisional Subjectivity
By José Manuel Alvarez Zárate
The assessment of damages has been one of the areas in which States participating in UNCITRAL Working Group III have expressed concerns about inconsistency, unpredictability and the correctness of ISDS awards. The successive versions of the draft provision on damages were intended to address those concerns. The revised Draft Provision 20 in WP.268 have incorporated a but-for test, requires loss or damage to be directly caused by the breach, replaces the former requirement of satisfactory evidence with a reasonable degree of certainty, and, for certain future damages, proposes a clear and convincing evidence standard. These developments, however, do not fully resolve the evidentiary and causal problem. Identifying who bears the burden of proof does not determine how much uncertainty that party must overcome before a factual proposition may be treated as established. Nor does reasonable degree of certainty, without further criteria, explain how the evidence should be assessed or what a tribunal must identify before concluding that the standard has been satisfied. This still leaves substantial room for subjective and divergent approaches to causation and quantum to Tribunals.
This paper argues that Draft Provision 20 should distinguish more clearly between the existence of the alleged loss, factual causation, legal compensability and quantification. Causation should determine which alleged economic losses are attributable to the breach before questions of legal compensability and valuation arise. For each material head of loss, the tribunal should identify the alleged causal mechanism, the relevant counterfactual, the material factual propositions on which it depends and the material alternative explanations for the same economic outcome before the loss proceeds to valuation. The paper proposes that a material factual proposition necessary to establish the existence of loss and factual causation should be treated as proven only where the evidentiary record provides an objective and verifiable basis for that finding. The tribunal should identify the evidence supporting and contradicting the proposition, assess its reliability, contemporaneity, source independence, corroboration, consistency and completeness, address material competing explanations supported by the record, and explain why the evidence establishes the proposition despite the residual possibility of error. Quantification should likewise rest on identified factual inputs and assumptions supported by the record, and the amount awarded should remain within the limits that the evidence can support.
The purpose is to make the exercise of adjudicative judgment transparent, disciplined and objectively reviewable. Findings on loss and causation should be capable of being reconstructed from the evidence, and the loss ultimately valued should correspond to the loss established as caused by the breach and determined to be compensable under the applicable law.
STATEMENT BY DR. CARLOS CORREA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE SOUTH CENTRE, TO THE MINISTERS AND GOVERNORS MEETING OF THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL GROUP OF TWENTY-FOUR (G-24)
13 October 2026, Bangkok, Thailand
While growing geopolitical tension, fragmentation and prolonged high uncertainty have provided a challenging scenario for the world economy, 2026 has seen repeatedglaring breaches of international lawand the United Nations (UN) Charter, which have met with condemnation but little, if any, consequential action. More than ever, multilateralism needs to be strengthened.
The UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation (UNFCITC) offers tremendous revenue potential for developing countries and an ambitious text for the Framework and the two Protocols must be finalized within the timeline of July 2027.
The UNFCITC can also provide a powerful multilateral framework for collective economic security. The Conference of State Parties (COSP) should be able to take collective measures to ensure that no Party is prevented from implementing the Convention, its Protocols and any other instruments adopted by the COSP. This is particularly relevant in the context of the digital economy, where developing countries may face unlawful threats and unilateral coercive measures when seeking to implement the Protocol on cross-border services. The UNFCITC should enable the Parties to take collective action to respond against such threats.
Reclaiming Authority in Investment Arbitration: Joint Interpretations in International Investment Agreements and Investor-State Dispute Settlement
By Adamant Aldo Ruddyard, Diego Flávio Fontoura José, Sidney Tambasi Netya
Supervisor: Prof. Fuad Zarbiyev
Prepared for the South Centre as part of the Geneva Graduate Institute’s LL.M. Legal Clinic Programme, International Economic Law Stream
In order to analyze to what extent joint interpretations of international investment agreements (IIAs) influence the decision-making of arbitration tribunals in investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS), this report will explore the evolving role of joint interpretations in international investment law and their impact on the balance of power between States and arbitral tribunals. The first section examines the shift towards joint interpretations and State control, highlighting key developments in treaty design and the increasing use of joint interpretation clauses (JICs) and how they potentially reshape investment tribunals’ decision-making. The second section delves into the characteristics and benefits of joint interpretations, discussing their effectiveness in addressing ambiguities in investment treaties and their potential outcomes to investment arbitrations. Finally, the report will conclude by offering recommendations for enhancing the role of joint interpretations in the investment arbitration framework. The recommendations will address the challenges States face in ensuring the effective use of these mechanisms, proposing ways to integrate JICs into the broader reform efforts of international investment law.
Why is the Global South optimistic about Artificial Intelligence?
By Danish
The international community has received growing claims about the existential risks posed by accelerated development of frontier AI capabilities. This has triggered increased nervousness and distrust in AI. However, closer analyses of global sentiments suggest that this is not uniform. Global South countries have maintained much more positive assessments of the potential benefits of AI for sustainable development, while also putting forward their priorities on increasing equitable access to AI and fairly sharing its benefits, alongside the need for financing and capacity-building. By assessing the statements delivered by countries at the UN high-level week (22-28 September 2026), this brief surfaces the different sentiments between the Global South and Global North regarding AI. It provides some possible reasons for this divergence and suggests some ways forward to capture this optimism for generating positive AI impacts.
The WIPO Negotiations on the Protection of Traditional Knowledge and Traditional Cultural Expressions Move Towards Clearer Objectives for the International Instrument
By Dr. Viviana Munoz Tellez
The 53rd session of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC) in September 2026 moved past a long textual standstill by agreeing to changes to the draft texts on traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions, including a new proposed formulation of objectives. This progress reflects growing alignment among the African Group, the Asia-Pacific Group, the Group of Latin American and Caribbean Countries (GRULAC) and Indigenous Peoples and local communities, with the Like-Minded Countries playing an important role as a cross-regional group. Building greater convergence among them, in particular on the obligations the instrument will create, will be important ahead of the 2027 WIPO Assemblies.
Modern for Whom? Interrogating the New Generation of EU – Africa Economic Partnership Agreements
SEATINI & South Centre Regional Webinar
Wednesday, 7 October 2026, 2-3:30 PM EAT/3-4:30 PM CEST
Venue: Zoom
An African-led discussion on the enhanced EU–ESA4 EPA and what the new generation of EPAs could mean for Africa’s policy space, industrialisation and regional integration under the AfCFTA.
Input on Technologies related to Climate Change and their Impacts on Human Rights
Special Rapporteur on Climate Change
South Centre
September 2026
Technological progress alone cannot resolve the compounding crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. Without a human rights-centred framework, deploying speculative and capital-intensive technologies risks reproducing historical extractivism and shifting ecological and social burdens onto developing countries and vulnerable communities.
The South Centre has submitted its formal input to the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change, addressing the multifaceted impacts of climate-related technologies.
Drawing on landmark advisory opinions from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), as well as the Right to Science under Article 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), our submission underscores four structural priorities:
Comprehensive Social Life Cycle Assessments (SLCAs): Assessments must go beyond operational carbon accounting to evaluate the full value chain—from upstream mineral extraction and localized water depletion to downstream e-waste disposal.
Binding Due Diligence & Precautionary Principle: States hold an objective duty to prevent significant transboundary harm. Stringent necessity tests, human rights impact assessments, and Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) are mandatory before licensing new interventions.
Operationalising Common But Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDR-RC): Advanced economies with greater historical responsibility must fulfill obligations via direct domestic decarbonization, public grant-based climate finance, and unencumbered technology transfers, not by treating developing nations as testing grounds for high-risk offsets.
Safeguarding Sovereign Regulatory Space from ISDS: Outdated international investment agreements with Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanisms and speculative discounted cash flow damages lead to “regulatory chill”. States must protect their policy space to drive community-based defossilisation without the threat of multi-billion-dollar investor arbitrations.
Beyond Amicus Curiae: Rethinking the Role of Third-Party Participation in Investment Arbitration and Environmental Governance
By Paulina Kuehme, Lakshmi Swathi Ganti, Brian Kelly Nyaga, Mattia Semenza
Supervisor: Prof. Elena Cima
Prepared for the South Centre as part of the Geneva Graduate Institute’s LL.M. Legal Clinic Programme, International Environmental Law and Governance Stream
This document examines third-party participation in Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), with a particular emphasis on environmental considerations. It investigates how to ensure procedural fairness and enable meaningful involvement of affected communities in cases concerning environmental protection. The study assesses the scope and challenges of such participation, including the ability to present evidence and legal arguments related to environmental impacts. It also explores the potential role of third-party involvement in shaping counterclaims against investors for environmental damage, and its possible influence in mitigating compensation by introducing arguments and evidence related to environmental costs. Through this analysis, the project aims to support a more balanced and sustainable ISDS framework – one that protects both investors and the environment – while fostering community empowerment and strengthening accountability for environmental harm.
Statement by the South Centre to the Open-ended Intergovernmental Working Group on the WHO Pandemic Agreement, Eight Session (IGWG8)
Geneva, 14 September 2026
Our statement to WHO IGWG8 calls for a Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) system that makes equity enforceable.
The statement urges negotiators to secure:
Standard, legally binding contracts with WHO that link access to benefit-sharing commitments.
Real-time set-asides and donations of vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics, alongside non-exclusive licensing and transfers of technology and know-how.
Monetary contributions from entities that commercialize products or services developed using PABS materials or sequence information.
Legal certainty, traceability and accountability.
The South Centre cautions that a “hybrid” architecture offering access through two routes, with benefit-sharing obligations attached to only one, would make benefit sharing a choice for some users, and hence is not a viable proposition.
We also think a federated workbench model discussed in informal negotiations merits further consideration.
For the WHO Pandemic Agreement to deliver on equity, access and benefit sharing must stand on an equal footing.
