I generally do not write about international law on here because (1) I have 0 training in it and any knowledge comes from my own independent study; (2) because there is a strong presumption of comity in international common law between nations such that many of the issues that I talk about, especially with finance, wind up applying internationally (with obvious notable exceptions like Venezuela). But I had heard a lot about the 2016 UN Conference on Trade and Development so when my law library received a copy of the corresponding report on investment I thought it might be worth making an unusual departure into this mysterious realm.

What peaked my interest was that the UN Conference on Trade and Development is remarkably different from most UN and international institutions that govern economic policy and regulation (the IMF, World Bank, G20 summit, etc.). It is considered to be about as Left as you can get with such an institution in the present world and countries of the Global South have had some, albeit limited, success in defending their interests there to the chagrin of the more powerful and prosperous nations (for my purposes here I am excluding China and India who now inhabit the awkward position of wanting to utilize their former colonization politically while also wanting to surpass the United States in dominating capitalism and perpetuating their own forms of imperialism, especially in Africa).

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