ABSTRACT
An Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) should not and will not affect the behaviour of companies in meeting national laws and regulatory environmental standards of host governments. Promoting investment through the MAI and other international instruments will thus help to improve standards for environmental protection. The author think that nothing went wrong so far in substance with the MAI, since the OECD Secretariat's work throughout the negotiations seemed to stay in line with the main purposes of the task at hand. Supporters of negotiations in the OECD felt it was better to have agreement on higher standards, which could be negotiated more quickly by advanced economies, signed by some non-OECD countries, and then eventually transferred to the World Trade Organization (WTO). The WTO's Singapore ministerial agreement on the International Labour Organization (ILO's) competence on labour issues is a clear indication that almost any coupling of environmental regulations with 'WTO MAI' would increase the obstacles to success.
