ABSTRACT
The leadership of thezwas in the hands of a so-called Bureau, consisting of the chairman and two vice- chairmen, one from the United States and one from Japan. The negotiators' failure fully to incorporate the environmental dimension from the start of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) negotiations is not the main reason why the MAI as envisaged will not come about. The main discipline of the MAI, as in all investment agreements, is the rule of national treatment, combined with most favoured nation treatment where national treatment is not applicable. In early 1996 the environment community began to wake up to the MAI negotiations. Thus, the environment was put on the agenda of the Negotiating Group for the first time in October 1996, a year after the negotiations had started. The Negotiating Group decided it did not want to meet with NGOs, but it did agree to an informal briefing for NGOs in early December 1996.
