Reports

Civil society organizations around the world have been calling for new rules and institutions that will help bring economic recovery to everyone and lay the foundation for more equitable, sustainable, and stable livelihoods in the future. These proposals would benefit poor countries and ordinary Americans.

After the crash of 1929, the apocryphal story goes, bankers jumped out windows. After last September's crash, this new report details, bankers shut their windows and stuffed their pockets -- with stock options that virtually guarantee them mega-million-dollar windfalls for years to come.

The U.S. military now views the massive disruptions that will result from global warming, in the absence of concerted international action, as a likely precipitant of increased violent conflict around the world.

Thank you for the opportunity to submit comments on the U.S. model bilateral investment treaty. As the Director of the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, I have published several relevant reports, drawing on interviews with policymakers and legal experts, as well as individuals directly affected by investor-state cases in the United States and several other countries.1 My overall view is that significant reforms are needed to correct the current imbalance between the broad public interest and the interests of private foreign investors.

Over the past decade, Africa’s status in U.S. national security policy has risen dramatically, for three main reasons: America’s growing dependence on Africa’s oil exports, Africa’s importance as a major battlefield in America’s “Global War on Terrorism,” and Africa’s central position in the global competition between America and China for economic and political power.