The Treadmill of Production, Sustainable Development Goals and International Investment Law: The Irreducibility of Growth and Environmental Regulation

There exists a concerted effort by international organizations to integrate disparate regimes such as International Investment Law (IIL) with international initiatives such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This effort is grounded in the notion that economic and environmental policy goals are compatible and reinforcing. In contrast, this article suggests that it is more likely for a regime like IIL to constrain the aims of an initiative like the SDGs than it is for the SDGs to attenuate the environmental challenges present in the operation of IIL. I make this argument by adopting the framework of the Treadmill of Production (ToP) and introducing it to the analysis of international law. The ToP posits that environmental degradation is intrinsic to capitalism’s imperative to expand production. Accordingly, investment policies will inevitably conflict with policies designed to attenuate environmental degradation. More specifically, this framework demonstrates how, as long as sustainable development initiatives rely on foreign private investment, their environmental aims will be forfeit to the primacy of economic growth intrinsic to regimes such as IIL. I analyze the tribunal’s decision in the case Eco Oro v Colombia to illustrate the incompatibility between investment and environmental policy goals.