Negotiations on Investment Facilitation for Development at the WTO

US-Japan Short Takes Series

Wednesday, March 9, 2022
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM (Eastern Daylight Time)

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This event is co-sponsored by the APEC Study Center at Columbia University.

About the Event

At the World Trade Organization (WTO), over 110 countries and regions are currently negotiating over investment facilitation for development. The aim is to facilitate foreign direct investment by improving the transparency and efficiency of investment measures and encouraging sustainable investment. This plurilateral initiative is essential to strengthen the rule-making function of the WTO. Kei Tomaru, who as second secretary at the Permanent Mission of Japan in Geneva represents one of the leading countries in the negotiations, and Karl P. Sauvant, resident senior fellow at the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, who closely follows these negotiations, will share their views about the negotiation’s importance and prospects.

About the speaker

Kei Tomaru is a second secretary at the Permanent Mission of Japan to the International Organizations in Geneva, where he works primarily on the areas of trade, investment and development with the World Trade Organization and the International Trade Centre. He has also served with the First North American Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, covering political relations between Japan and the US. He holds a master ‘s degree in public policy from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a bachelor’s degree in North American studies from the University of Tokyo.

About the moderator

Karl P. Sauvant is a resident senior fellow at the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) and lecturer in law at Columbia Law School, where he teaches foreign direct investment and public policy. Sauvant was the founding executive director of the Vale Columbia Center on Sustainable International Investment (CCSI’s predecessor). He has published widely in the international investment area. A German national, Sauvant has served as director of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development's Investment Division. He joined the United Nations in 1973, where he created the prestigious annual World Investment Report, for which he was the lead author until 2004. Sauvant is founder and was an editor (until 2005) of the journal Transnational Corporations. He provided intellectual leadership and guidance to a series of 25 monographs on key issues related to international investment agreements.