The Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI), a joint center of Columbia Law School and Columbia Climate School at Columbia University, works to strengthen the sustainable development potential of international investment, and to ensure that international investment is mutually beneficial for investors and the citizens of recipient countries. We envision a world in which international investment contributes to, and does not undermine, sustainable development.
We develop and disseminate practical approaches to maximize the benefits of international investment for sustainable development—and to minimize its harms—by conducting rigorous research, providing policy analysis and advisory services, offering educational programs, developing tools and resources, and fostering multi-stakeholder dialogue and knowledge-sharing.
We integrate legal, economic, and policy expertise, and approach sustainable investment holistically, bridging diverse disciplines, including investment law, natural resource management, human rights law, economics, political economy, finance, and climate change policy. One of our great strengths lies in having knowledgeable perspective across the range of stakeholders, tools, policies, and practices that shape investment flows and outcomes. This allows us to work across communities of practice and with different stakeholder groups, and to provide insight and solutions at the intersections of these often-siloed areas relevant to sustainable investment.
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Resources
Displaying 36 - 40 of 41Land Grievances, Human Rights, and Investor Protections
The responsible governance of land-based investments hinges not only on ensuring that new investments comply with guidelines and standards, but also that existing investments are conducted responsibly, and that related grievances are adequately addressed. Dealing with existing land-based investments and the grievances that they raise, however, can be difficult for host governments navigating a complicated landscape of legal obligations and pragmatic considerations.
Guide to Land Contracts: Agricultural Projects
This guide aims to assist non-lawyers to better understand agricultural investment contracts. Agricultural investment contracts can be complex, and some provisions may be difficult to understand. This guide aims to assist the reader in understanding technical provisions found in these contracts, by providing explanations for common provisions, as well as a glossary of certain legal and technical terms.
This resource is part of the CCSI’s Directory of Community Guidance on Agreements Relating to Agriculture or Forestry Investment.
Negotiation Support Portal for Host Governments
This Portal brings together many useful tools and resources to provide technical support to assist governments in the investment process
A Framework to Approach Shared Use of Mining-Related Infrastructure
The framework provides guidance to policy makers on how to approach the question of shared use. It highlights the operational models that are necessary for implementation, the key-success factors, the enabling conditions and how to ultimately better coordinate major investments in physical infrastructure by privately-owned natural resource concessionaires with national infrastructure development plans. The framework also equips policy makers with a set of questions that should help conduct the negotiations on shared use with companies.
Resource Contracts
ResourceContracts.org is a repository of publicly available oil, gas, and mining contracts in machine-readable, searchable, open data format. ResourceContracts.org promotes greater transparency of investments in the extractive industries, and facilitates a better understanding of the contracts that govern them. This site provides summaries of contracts and their terms to facilitate understanding of important provisions in the documents.