The Centre for Development and Environment (CDE), University of Bern

The Centre for Development and Environment (CDE) is the University of Bern's center for sustainable development research. Founded in 1988 as a part of the Institute of Geography, CDE became an interdisciplinary university center in 2009. Its current overall aim is to foster sustainable development-oriented research across various institutes and departments of the University of Bern. In view of this new mandate, CDE devised a new strategy focusing on 6 strategic themes. These are explored and advanced by groups of researchers organized in thematic clusters. Three of the 6 clusters address sustainable development from a comprehensive perspective: global change impacts, innovations for sustainable development, and education for sustainable development. These clusters are complemented by 3 clusters that investigate sustainable development with a specialized perspective: natural resources and ecosystem services, multidimensional disparities, and governance of land and natural resources.

The Chilean Experience in South-South Trade and Investment Agreements

This paper analyzes the main features of Chilean trade and investment treaties, examining if there is a Chilean pattern in the regulation of trade and investment flows or if it is influenced by agreements signed by Chile with developed countries. The article also examines if there are differences between the treaties signed by Chile and other “Southern” developing countries and those negotiated with “Northern” developed economies, and if sustainable development concerns are part of the negotiations of trade and investment agreements by Chile.

Labour Migration, Trade and Investment: From Fragmentation to Coherence

Trade, investment and migration are strongly intertwined, being three key factors in international production. Yet, law and regulation of the three has remained highly fragmented. Trade is regulated by the WTO on the multilateral level, and through preferential trade agreements on the regional and bilateral levels – it is fragmented and complex in its own right. Investment, on the other hand, is mainly regulated through bilateral investment treaties with no strong links to the regulation of trade or migration. And, finally, migration is regulated by a web of different international, regional and bilateral agreements which focus on a variety of different aspects of migration ranging from humanitarian to economic. The problems of institutional fragmentation in international law are well known. There is no organizational forum for coherent strategy-making on the multilateral level covering all three areas. Normative regulations may thus contradict each other. Trade regulation may bring about liberalization of access for service providers, but eventually faces problems in recruiting the best people from abroad. Investors may withdraw investment without being held liable for disruptions to labour and to the livelihood and infrastructure of towns and communities affected by disinvestment. Finally, migration policies do not seem to have a significant impact as long as trade policies and investment policies are not working in a way that is conducive to reducing migration pressure, as trade and investment are simply more powerful on the regulatory level than migration. This chapter addresses the question as to how fragmentation of the three fields could be reme-died and greater coherence between these three areas of factor allocation in international economic relations and law could be achieved. It shows that migration regulation on the international level is lagging behind that on trade and investment. Stronger coordination and consideration of migration in trade and investment policy, and stronger international cooperation in migration, will provide the foundations for a coherent international architecture in the field.