As part of its technical assistance work, UNCTAD regularly provides support to countries in reviewing their existing international investment agreements (IIAs). At the request of the ECOWAS Secretariat, UNCTAD reviewed the bilateral investment treaties of ECOWAS Members. The review includes a detailed analysis of the language of existing obligations and proposes a menu of reform options for specific treaty provisions based on UNCTAD’s reform tools such as the Investment Policy Framework for Sustainable Development and the recent IIA Reform Accelerator. The aim of the project is to support ECOWAS Members in modernizing their existing stock of bilateral investment treaties.
UNCTAD and the ECOWAS Secretariat jointly organized a workshop presenting the insights generated by the analysis. The workshop brought together ECOWAS policy makers in charge of investment as well as experts from the ECOWAS Secretariat and UNCTAD. In addition to presenting key findings, the workshop charted the way forward in the reform of old-generation treaties.
