. /.WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONWT/WGTI/W/147
17 September 2002
(02-4926)
Working Group on the Relationship
between Trade and InvestmentOriginal:  English
COMMUNICATION FROM CANADA
The following communication, dated 13 September 2002, has been received from the
Permanent Mission of Canada.
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CONSULTATION AND DISPUTE SETTLEMENT
1. Canada’s consideration of the elements identified by Ministers in Doha has been informed by
the fact that any prospective multilateral framework on investment would coexist and interact with
other WTO agreements.  Indeed, Canada believ es that a WTO framework on investment should
ensure a high degree of coherence or complementarity among the various WTO agreements that
include investment-related provisions.  Such an approach does not prejudge the potential architecture,
scope or disciplines of a multilateral framework; complementarity may be reached by a number of
avenues.  It does argue, however, against the adoption of principles or instruments that may, at this
time, be incompatible with the existing WTO architecture.
2. In paragraph 10 of its paper on “Consultation and the Settlement of Disputes Between
Members”, the WTO Secretariat notes that the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding applies to the“‘covered agreements’ defined to include the Agreement Establishing the WTO and the multilateral
and plurilateral trade agreements set out in Appendix 1 of the DSU, although under some agreements
special rules and procedures are applicable (Appendix 2).”  Therefore, to the extent that existing WTO
agreements, such as the GATS and the TRIMS, include investment-related provisions, the WTO
provisions on dispute settlement are already applicable to investment.
3. This would seem to suggest, first, that the DSU should also be applicable to any prospective
framework on investment and, second, that it would be inappropriate to provide for an alternative
dispute settlement mechanism, such as an investor-state dispute settlement option, that would, in all
likelihood, be applicable only to the obligations and commitments contained in a multilateral
framework on investment.  The latter contingency would mean that the provisions of a potentialmultilateral framework on investment could be governed by fundamentally different dispute
settlement provisions than investment-related pr ovisions under other WTO agreements, such as the
GATS, the TRIPs and the TRIMs.  Under this scenario, an arbitrary and artificial distinction would be
drawn between services- and manufacturing-related in vestment, for example, which would not reflect
the reality of investment activity.
4. There are other arguments in favour of relying on the existing dispute settlement mechanism
under the DSU, not least of which is that the WTO was designed to establish rights and obligations for
Members, not private parties.  In addition, Members have considerable familiarity and experience
with the DSU.  Finally, as the Secretariat point s out, the DSU includes a number of provisions onWT/WGTI/W/147
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special and differential treatment for developing and least-developed countries, including the
provision of technical assistance to developing countries involved in a dispute.
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