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Articles 1 - 15 of 15
Full-Text Articles in Law
Investment Governance In Africa To Support Climate Resilience And Decarbonization, Martin Dietrich Brauch, Brenda Akankunda
Investment Governance In Africa To Support Climate Resilience And Decarbonization, Martin Dietrich Brauch, Brenda Akankunda
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications
African nations have only marginally contributed to global warming relative to developed and emerging economies in the Americas, Asia, and Europe. However, the African continent will bear a disproportionate burden of the negative impacts of climate change. Climate-related challenges like flooding, drought, and intense heat waves will increasingly confront the continent at a worsening rate. African nations should not be expected to take the lead in addressing a climate emergency they did not create. The priority for Africa is to receive support and investment to build resilience and adapt to climate impacts.
Primer On International Investment Treaties And Investor-State Dispute Settlement, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment
Primer On International Investment Treaties And Investor-State Dispute Settlement, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications
What is Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)? FDI occurs when an individual or corporation in one country (“home state”) sets up or buys all or a significant part of a company that is incorporated in a different country (“host state”). Companies invest abroad to access land-based resources including mining, more affordable labour for instance in manufacturing, and new markets, among other reasons. Many countries seek to attract FDI in order to realize benefits in the form of tax revenues, technology transfer, jobs, and other economic linkages. The images below illustrate the concept of FDI, as well as some of the sectors …
Advocates Say Isds Is Necessary Because Domestic Courts Are ‘Inadequate,’ But Claims And Decisions Don’T Reveal Systemic Failings, Maria Rocha, Martin Dietrich Brauch, Tehtena Mebratu-Tsegaye
Advocates Say Isds Is Necessary Because Domestic Courts Are ‘Inadequate,’ But Claims And Decisions Don’T Reveal Systemic Failings, Maria Rocha, Martin Dietrich Brauch, Tehtena Mebratu-Tsegaye
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications
Proponents of including investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions in treaties, contracts, and even national laws argue that ISDS is necessary because domestic courts are “inadequate.” Without this mechanism, foreign investors would be dependent on domestic courts and administrative mechanisms, which, proponents claim, are often inefficient, slow, biased, corrupt, and lacking in international law expertise, especially in developing countries. As one insight to analyze the “inadequate courts” argument, CCSI has examined treaty-based ISDS cases in which investors complained of domestic court proceedings or decisions, including the specific complaints and the tribunals’ analysis of those claims.
Fixing The Business Of Food: Aligning Food Company Practices With The Sdgs, Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment, Sanda Chiara Lab, Barilla Center For Food And Nutrition
Fixing The Business Of Food: Aligning Food Company Practices With The Sdgs, Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment, Sanda Chiara Lab, Barilla Center For Food And Nutrition
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications
The food sector confronts significant sustainable development challenges. It both contributes to, and suffers from, environmental degradation, especially human-induced climate change and deforestation. Although it can provide farming communities with livelihoods and incomes, it also can fuel land grabs that undermine community rights and wellbeing. The sector feeds the growing global population, but also contributes to the epidemics of obesity and metabolic diseases, while chronic malnutrition has continued to worsen in the years since adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
In light of these challenges and opportunities, a number of frameworks, guidance documents, and standards have aimed to create …
Carbon Accounting By Public And Private Financial Institutions: Can We Be Sure Climate Finance Is Leading To Emissions Reductions?, Martin Dietrich Brauch, Emily Spittle
Carbon Accounting By Public And Private Financial Institutions: Can We Be Sure Climate Finance Is Leading To Emissions Reductions?, Martin Dietrich Brauch, Emily Spittle
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications
To further and fully understand how to plan for the decarbonization of mining value chains, we need better data on carbon and other greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, neither consumers, corporates, or financial institutions know the embodied emissions in the products they produce or sell. While methods like life-cycle analysis and environmental product declarations exist, none use a verifiable, comparable, or widely adopted emissions reporting framework capable of sending supply chain signals.
To truly reform material supply chains, new solutions for markets, capital, and policy are required. COMET (the Coalition on Materials Emissions Transparency) – an alliance launched at Davos …
New Tech, New Deal: Mining Policy Options In The Face Of New Technology, Isabelle Ramdoo, Aaron Cosbey, Jeff Geipel, Perrine Toledano
New Tech, New Deal: Mining Policy Options In The Face Of New Technology, Isabelle Ramdoo, Aaron Cosbey, Jeff Geipel, Perrine Toledano
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications
Throughout the history of mining, technological innovation has played a vital role across all cycles of mining projects. The new wave of technological adoption is a combination of evolutionary and revolutionary technologies, with an increasing focus on the latter. An acceleration in investments in disruptive technologies in recent years has seen the large-scale mining sector finally catching up with a dynamic that has already advanced in many other sectors. The reasons for this shift include more difficult geology, declining ore deposits, the need to reverse a secular decline in productivity, the need to improve safety for mine workers, a need …
Responsible Coffee Sourcing: Towards A Living Income For Producers, Kaitlin Y. Cordes, Margaret Sagan, Solina Kennedy
Responsible Coffee Sourcing: Towards A Living Income For Producers, Kaitlin Y. Cordes, Margaret Sagan, Solina Kennedy
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications
Coffee, one of the world’s most popular beverages, provides livelihoods for at least 60 million people across dozens of countries. Promoting the long-term health, wellbeing, and environmental sustainability of the much beloved coffee sector should be a clear priority.
CCSI has continued its work on coffee sustainability with a 2021 report: “Responsible Coffee Sourcing: Towards a Living Income for Producers.” The report focuses on a critical but under-examined topic: the impact of coffee company sourcing practices on coffee producer and farmworker well-being. The report, commissioned by a long-term investment manager, analyzes the sourcing practices of ten large coffee roasters and …
Guide On Incentives For Responsible Investment In Agriculture And Food Systems, Anna Bulman, Kaitlin Y. Cordes, Ladan Mehranvar, Ella Merrill, Yannick Fiedler
Guide On Incentives For Responsible Investment In Agriculture And Food Systems, Anna Bulman, Kaitlin Y. Cordes, Ladan Mehranvar, Ella Merrill, Yannick Fiedler
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications
To support implementation of the Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems (CFS RAI), CCSI has developed resources for governments and other stakeholders in partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).
This work includes an online course on creating an enabling environment for responsible investment in agriculture and food systems. The course is freely available, accessible online and available for download. Part I highlights the features and key players of an enabling environment that promotes responsible investment in agriculture and food security. Part II addresses multi-stakeholder engagement in the design of legal and …
Covid-19 And Land-Based Investment: Changing Landscapes, Tehtena Mebratu-Tsegaye, Nathaniah Jacobs, Clarisse Marsac
Covid-19 And Land-Based Investment: Changing Landscapes, Tehtena Mebratu-Tsegaye, Nathaniah Jacobs, Clarisse Marsac
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications
CCSI, IIED, and Namati are partnering on a new initiative to support governments, civil society, local communities, and private sector actors in improving the governance and practices of land-based investments.
Recognizing that more and better private sector investment is widely seen as critical to advancing economic development and achieving the SDGs in low- and middle-income countries, this initiative responds to concerns that land-based investments have resulted in land dispossession, environmental degradation, and conflict.
The Advancing Land-based Investment Governance (ALIGN) project involves:
- Sustained, in-depth work in up to three countries, including Sierra Leone, to support policy development and implementation, legal …
The Case For A Climate-Smart Update Of The Africa Mining Vision, Perrine Toledano, Martin Dietrich Brauch, Karan Bhulwaka, Kojo Busia
The Case For A Climate-Smart Update Of The Africa Mining Vision, Perrine Toledano, Martin Dietrich Brauch, Karan Bhulwaka, Kojo Busia
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications
The 2009 Africa Mining Vision (AMV) provides guidance for the industrialization of African countries by leveraging their mining sector. However, the global context has changed since its adoption. As a result, it does not include guidance on how governments should embrace the climate change agenda as an opportunity for better and further industrialization, deeper linkages, and sustainable development.
There are many ways to look at the implications of international climate change policy for Africa, including through the increased extraction of minerals needed in clean energy application and the greening of mines. The localization of global value chains – induced by …
Comments To The Draft Working Group Iii Workplan, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment, International Institute For Environment And Development, International Institute For Sustainable Development
Comments To The Draft Working Group Iii Workplan, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment, International Institute For Environment And Development, International Institute For Sustainable Development
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications
The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) is currently working on how to reform international investment treaties, focusing in particular on those treaties’ provisions enabling investors to sue governments in international arbitration. As an observer organization in this process, CCSI has emphasized that in the context of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) reform, it is important to first consider what it is that investment treaties aim to achieve, and only then to consider what form(s) of dispute settlement will best advance those objectives. This means not only looking at reform of the existing ISDS mechanism, but also alternatives to …
Transparency For Whom? Grounding Land Investment Transparency In The Needs Of Local Actors, Sam Szoke-Burke
Transparency For Whom? Grounding Land Investment Transparency In The Needs Of Local Actors, Sam Szoke-Burke
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications
Transparency is often seen as a means of improving governance and accountability of investment, but its potential to do so is hindered by vague definitions and failures to focus on the needs of key local actors.
In this new report focusing on agribusiness, forestry, and renewable energy projects (“land investments”), CCSI grounds transparency in the needs of project-affected communities and other local actors. Transparency efforts that seek to inform and empower communities can also help governments, companies, and other actors to more effectively manage operational risk linked to social conflict.
Troublingly, the report finds that:
- Disclosures around land investments continue …
Transparency Of Land-Based Investments: Cameroon Country Snapshot, Sam Szoke-Burke, Samuel Nguiffo, Stella Tchoukep
Transparency Of Land-Based Investments: Cameroon Country Snapshot, Sam Szoke-Burke, Samuel Nguiffo, Stella Tchoukep
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications
Despite a recent transparency law and participation in transparency initiatives, Cameroon’s investment environment remains plagued by poor transparency.
In a new report focusing on agribusiness projects in Cameroon, CCSI and the Centre pour l’Environnement et le Développement (CED) find that:
- Communities continue to be excluded from decision-making around investments.
- The government pursues a top-down approach to concession allocation and remains reluctant to recognize all legitimate tenure rights.
- The government faces threats to its legitimacy as the grievances of citizens and investors alike lead to the barring of roads by communities and investor withdrawals.
CCSI and CED therefore call for:
- A …
Should The European Union Fix, Leave Or Kill The Energy Charter Treaty?, Martin Dietrich Brauch
Should The European Union Fix, Leave Or Kill The Energy Charter Treaty?, Martin Dietrich Brauch
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications
In the early 1990s, the European Economic Community – the predecessor of the European Union (EU) – spearheaded an initiative to promote international cooperation in the energy sector, particularly with post-Soviet States in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Out of this process the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) was born in 1994. Going much beyond international cooperation, the treaty allows foreign investors in the energy sector to sue their host States in international arbitral tribunals and claim monetary compensation when policy measures and other State action affect their interests.
Fast-forward to 2021. With 135 known cases initiated to date, the ECT’s …
Nigeria’S Petroleum Industry Bill: A Missed Opportunity To Prepare For The Zero-Carbon Future, Solina Kennedy, Martin Dietrich Brauch, Perrine Toledano, Tehtena Mebratu-Tsegaye
Nigeria’S Petroleum Industry Bill: A Missed Opportunity To Prepare For The Zero-Carbon Future, Solina Kennedy, Martin Dietrich Brauch, Perrine Toledano, Tehtena Mebratu-Tsegaye
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications
With Nigeria’s National Assembly debating the proposed Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) in the first quarter of 2021 – after nearly two decades of attempted reform of the country’s petroleum sector – Nigeria has a unique opportunity to rethink the role of the oil and gas industry in Nigeria’s economy and build out the country’s energy sector and economic capacity for the long term. CCSI’s report Equipping the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) for the Low-Carbon Transition, released before the PIB was publicized, advances suggestions on how to do so. The PIB takes notable steps toward much-needed reform of NNPC’s …