ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the reasons for the political failure of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI). It explains the relationship of the MAI to North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the nature of opposition to the MAI by Canadian-based non-governmental organizations (NGO), and the nature and content of the MAI. Canada has mitigated the worst excesses of left wing economic nationalism through the investment provisions of the FTA and NAFTA. The success of the NGOs in defeating the MAI builds upon their less spectacular but consistent progress in capturing the environmental agenda of international organizations. The aim of the MAI is to make domestic markets internationally contestable by providing a basic set of rules for foreign direct investment to which all member countries agree. While the intellectual foundations of the MAI are to be found in the FTA of 1989, the economic and political dynamics of the MAI are based on the FTA.
