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The rules governing the international economy increasingly shape and constrain not only economic but also social and environmental policy choices at the national and local level. Currently, global governance and economic prescription rests on the assumption that “more is better” when it comes to attracting foreign investment by transnational corporations, especially in developing countries. Although too contentious for the WTO, investment agreements favoring TNCs are multiplying at the regional and bilateral levels.

This presentation first describes the emerging regime governing foreign investment regime and examines its impacts on sustainable industrial development. It then describes the stalemate at the WTO, in which neither a neo-liberal nor sustainable development agenda can make headway, and considers three ten-year scenarios about the governance of globalisation.

Stream: Economic Sustainability

Paper: Whither Globalisation?

Lyuba Zarsky is an internationally recognized scholar and advocate for global sustainable development. Trained academically as an economist, she co-founded and co-directed the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability in San Francisco, California and is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University in Boston. She is also Senior Associate at the Globalism Institute at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, where she currently resides. She has published widely in the areas of international investment, human rights and the environment, and corporate social responsibility. Her most recent books are "Human Rights and the Environment, Conflicts and Norms in a Globalizing World" (Earthscan 2002), "Beyond Good Deeds", "Case Studies and a New Policy Agenda for Corporate Accountability" (Natural Heritage Institute, 2002), and "International Investment for Sustainable Development: Balancing Rights and Rewards" (Earthscan, 2004). With Kevin Gallagher, she is currently writing a book on the impact of foreign direct investment in the high tech sector on sustainable industrial development in Mexico.