USCIB submitted a letter to officials in the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Trade Representative regarding ongoing negotiations on reform of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) in the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Working Group III.

“USCIB has been the lead private sector observer delegation throughout these negotiations and has long been a leading voice for the U.S. private sector on international investment policy issues,” said USCIB Director of Investment, Trade, and China Alice Slayton Clark. 

The letter emphasized several policy issues of concern to the U.S. business and industry community, including the European Union’s ill-conceived proposal to replace ISDS with a multilateral investment court, which the United States has opposed under successive Democratic and Republican administrations.

According to Clark, “we have seen almost no support for the court amongst U.S. stakeholders, including business, labor, and environmental groups.”

The letter also noted that UNCITRAL WG III is considering other “reforms” to ISDS that would be unfavorable to U.S. business. For example, some states have proposed that investors who own shares in a foreign company should be prohibited from seeking a remedy for damages to their investments if they do not control the company. Such an approach would leave U.S. investors entirely without a remedy in many cases, even where the law requires them to invest through a joint venture with local partners.

USCIB made three recommendations for the Biden Administration to consider:
• that the U.S. government continue to assign a high priority to the UNCITRAL WG III negotiations;
• that the U.S. government continue the practice of dialogue and cooperation with USCIB, the broader U.S. private sector, and other stakeholders; and
• that the U.S. government seek to include on the agenda for any upcoming high-level U.S.-EU meeting, a frank discussion of the EU’s multilateral investment court proposal and the UNCITRAL negotiations.

USCIB submitted a letter to the Biden administration lauding its recent decision to engage in World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations to facilitate trade in services, but urging a more ambitious outcome.

A plurilateral negotiation involving sixty-four nations, the Joint Statement Initiative (JSI) on Services Domestic Regulations (SDR) seeks to streamline and make more transparent domestic regulations governing services covered under the 1995 WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). This would largely target rules that authorize the supply of services such as licensing and qualification requirements and procedures, as well as technical standards relating to trade.

The August 2 letter, co-signed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Foreign Trade Counsel, requests U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to press like-minded nations to maximize the agreement’s potential by extending the proposed disciplines on regulations to a broader set of services sectors.

“While the JSI would be meaningful as currently considered, it would be far more beneficial to extend the disciplines beyond the sectors under GATS, which are uneven in coverage and out of date,” said USCIB Director for Investment, Trade and China Alice Slayton Clark.

Services trade comprises nearly half of global trade in value-added terms and has grown at twice the rate of merchandise trade over the past decade. Yet it costs double to trade in services compared to goods. According to the letter: “streamlining and updating regulatory regimes in the broadest array of services sectors will go far in correcting this inequity.” It would also contribute to global economic recovery, providing a boost to a sector disproportionately harmed by pandemic shutdowns and travel restrictions.

A copy of the letter is available here.