Regulating International Business

This timely book arose from a seminar Rights and Responsibilities: New Approaches to International Business Rules, organized by the International Business Regulation Forum with Oxfam GB. It points the way towards a positive regulatory framework for International investment following the failure of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI). It examines the flaws in free-market strategies underpinning the recent phase of globalization, in particular drawing out the lessons from the MAI, suspended in October 1998. Contributors explore an alternative based on a positive regulatory framework for international business, aimed at maximizing the positive contribution to development of foreign investment and minimizing its negative social and environmental impacts. The contributors include academics, researchers for non-governmental organizations, and business and trade-union representatives, writing from a combination of economic, legal, and political perspectives. The book combines academic analysis with grassroots and practical experience, and suggests concrete policy proposals.