Trade, Investment and Sustainable Development Programme - Overview

Current Projects

Past Projects

FIELD's Trade, Investment and Sustainable Development (TISD) Programme focuses on how the international regulations and institutions that manage globalisation impact on developing countries and sustainable development, as well as their relationship to international agreements designed to protect the environment. FIELD aims to empower politically and economically marginalised countries and communities so that they can make informed choices about trade rules and their effect on the natural environment and on development objectives.

The most powerful instrument in the international trade regime is the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and while the main focus of the TISD programme has been the operation of the WTO, FIELD lawyers have also followed and influenced the law and policy of the European Union and other regional trading blocks, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and various environmental treaty bodies. TISD lawyers also provide legal advice and support through advocacy for NGO partners across the globe.

Field's TISD Programme aims to make international trade more equitable and the processes behind it more transparent and participatory. We aim to do this by:

• Building the capacity of policy-makers from developing and least developed countries to participate in WTO negotiations, and in the design of domestic and regional trade policy;
• Making possible NGO participation in the WTO dispute settlement process, through research, analysis and the submission of amicus curiae (or "friends of the court") briefs to the WTO dispute settlement body;
• Examining and exposing the role and influence of large corporations and multinationals in the shaping of trade and sustainable development policy; and
• Supporting the multilateral negotiation of effective trade related environmental measures (TREMS) in a manner that avoids conflicts with trade rules.

The WTO was established in 1995, as a result of the Uruguay Round of negotiations that took place under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) between 1986 and 1994. The WTO deals with the rules of trade between nations. WTO members have signed agreements that deal with every aspect of international trade, including trade in goods and services, as well as intellectual property and a standard process for dispute settlement. The November 2001 Ministerial meeting in Doha started a new round of negotiations (often referred to as the 'Development Round'), which provides a mandate for negotiations on a range of issues, including trade and environment, agriculture, market access for non-agricultural products, intellectual property, a review of dispute settlement, and the difficulty that developing countries have in implementing existing WTO Agreements.

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