This chapter argues that the discussion on trade and investment will not take off unless we first put together all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. Both the discussion in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) suffer in this respect. Although the two negotiations were substantially different, neither of them adequately examined the incentive structure of the capital-importing countries. To do that, the first step should be a thorough inquiry not only into their motives for signing investment agreements, but for accepting a harmonized international regulatory framework. Instead of taking an affirmative response for granted, there are reasons to believe that the issue should be rather framed as a question: Do developing (capital-importing) countries benefit from a harmonized regime? The first section of the chapter provides a brief description of the attempts to multilateralize existing bilateral agreements on protection of investment. The second section moves to discuss what has not happened while attempting to multilateralize investment protection, and why it is crucial, assuming that there is willingness by stakeholders to enact such a framework. The last section concludes.

The most flattering statement regarding the Doha Round is that there is a lot of uncertainty surrounding its fate. The Doha Round, as originally designed and understood, is not an option anymore. Although a formula has been found to keep the ball rolling, at this stage it is impossible to predict what direction it will take. There exists a lack of leadership to conclude the round and it suffers from inherent birth defects. This absence of a conclusion might send the wrong message at a moment when the WTO is emerging as the only genuine forum of multilateral cooperation. Though this is not the first trade round in the history of the multilateral trading system and definitely not the only one that is taking longer than planned to complete, it is the first time that the round risks being ditched altogether. In all previous rounds, which were essentially ‘business’ deals, trading nations managed to come up with an agreement in the end. This is the first time that they have announced ‘we do it for development’, and they now risk delivering nothing. Something has got to give at this stage, and we are running out of time as far as options regarding ‘deliverables’ are concerned. The accent has correctly been placed on priority issues for the bottom billion. The WTO, even if this effort succeeds, will have to face some tough tests in the near future arising from issues which were not at all addressed during the Doha Round.

The disciplining of Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) by the WTO has been ‘relaxed’ recently as a result of the new context (the Transparency Mechanism) within which notified PTAs are being multilaterally reviewed. This is probably a blessing for a number of reasons, including the success of the multilateral trading system in bringing tariffs down over the years (and the ensuing reduced trade diversion), the fact that modern PTAs deal with many non-trade issues as well (for which no WTO disciplines exist), and the recent empirical literature suggesting overall positive welfare implications for those participating in similar schemes. This paper discusses these and other reasons to support the view that the WTO should rather focus on the multilateral agenda instead of diverting its attention towards disciplining PTAs. In more concrete terms, this paper argues in support of the thesis that the Transparency Mechanism should not be simply a de facto substitute of the previous regime (where outlawing a PTA could not a priori be excluded), but the de jure new forum to discuss PTAs within the multilateral trading system, at least for the time being. A first do-no-harm-policy is one of the rationales for the thesis advocated here.