Publisher's Synopsis
Foreign direct investment (FDI) can contribute positively to the economic development of the host country. However, if prudent regulatory mechanisms are not in place, FDI may not always be beneficial to the host country. After the failure of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), the world does not have a global investment agreement that would regulate FDI. A global investment agreement dealing with FDI would clearly fill a large gap in the network of regulatory measures governing the world economy. Other attempts had been made prior to the MAI to address this problem, but all have failed so far. The main reason for such failures has always been the lack of compromise in the positions held by the major stakeholders. This book analyzes the pros and cons of these opposing positions and uses them as a basis for forging a hybrid model called 'Regulated Openness'. This hybridity is thus grounded in compromise and pragmatism. But it is a principled pragmatism in two ways. First, the book analyzes the weaknesses and strengths of the positions of all the key players in the FDI debate in search of a marriage of these positions where the strengths of one might cover the weaknesses of the other. Second, the book defends a method motivated by the question: 'What is the best kind of FDI agreement from the starting point of the reality of the key players' present positions?' This is seen as a more productive method than crafting a model from purely analytic foundations that would not apply to any existing world because it would abstract from real positions of real players.
