Treaty on Sustainable Investment for Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation: Aligning International Investment Law with the Urgent Need for Climate Change Action

The climate change mitigation and adaptation objectives set by the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the broader Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) under the Agenda 2030 create a need for an unprecedented shift from carbon-intensive to low-carbon investment projects. Investment and the legal regimes that govern it-including international investment law-are critical to this shift. To accelerate it, the authors propose the Treaty on Sustainable Investment for Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation. One of the winners of the Stockholm Treaty Lab competition, the treaty has three building blocks: (1) encouraging Sustainable Investments; (2) discouraging Unsustainable Investments and eliminating new Unsustainable Investments; and (3) ensuring a just transition to sustainable and low-carbon economies and societies. It allows states to indicate, in schedules to the annexes of the treaty, which sectors will be defined as Sustainable or Unsustainable Investments. It protects and signals policy support for Sustainable Investments, while denying treaty-based procedural rights to Unsustainable Investments and committing states to agree on modalities and timelines for phasing out incentives for Unsustainable Investments, such as fossil fuel subsidies. It includes investor obligations and provides access to justice to individuals and communities through an accountability mechanism.