Overview

• Trade
• Investment
• Sustainable Development

FIELD's Trade, Investment and Sustainable Development (TISD) Programme focuses on how international regulations and institutions that manage globalisation affect developing countries and sustainable development. The programme also focuses on how globalisation influences international agreements designed to protect the environment. The aim of the TISD programme is to empower marginalised groups and communities as well as government officials and businesses to make informed decisions on trade, investment and natural resources management.

For many years, FIELD's trade work has focused on the role and activities of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). At the launch of the "Doha round" of trade negotiations in 2001, rich countries made a commitment to make the environment and development a centrepiece of trade. But to date, progress on the "Doha Development Agenda" has been minimal, and negotiations have so far missed every self-imposed deadline.

  "The TISD programme helps communities make informed decisions on trade, investment and natural resources management."

In order to create economic growth, governments in developing countries aim to attract large scale investment. This often involves natural resources, the use of which can boost national development and alleviate poverty.

Robust investment laws are an important part of the overall package that a country can offer to potential investors. But if decisions around natural resources are made without the participation of the communities who depend on them, investment can work against sustainable development.

FIELD works with a broad range of stakeholders to help shape investment law such that it strikes a balance between the investors' need for legal protection and the social, environmental and economic considerations at the heart of sustainable development.

"Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

UN World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland Commission), Our Common Future, 1987

As a legal organisation, FIELD's sustainable development work helps to develop and improve ways for the public to participate in decision making processes, for these processes to be transparent and for all parties to be accountable for their decisions.