International Trade and Investment Agreements in Light of the Integration Principle

This chapter asks how the principle of integration can translate to the international level, and reviews and discusses trade and investment treaties in the context of this principle. It begins by proving that sustainable development is a ‘purpose’ of over thirty treaties, and that they explicitly commit to achieve this purpose in very diverse sectors and ways, using the FAO Seed Treaty as an example to prove this point. It considers the role of the ‘purposive approach’ in treaty interpretation, in light of the interpretive rules of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT), and the limitations of this approach, noting alternative views that are equally relevant. The chapter then goes on to discuss how the integration principle might assist in interpreting provisions of trade and investment agreements, as a basis for later examination of progress in the World Trade Organization (WTO), and in bilateral and regional economic negotiations which make an explicit commitment to sustainable development.