The international system for the governance of foreign investments is highly fragmented consisting mainly of bilateral agreements. With the adoption of nine guiding principles for global investment policy-making in 2016, some observers argue that the G20 can actually serve as a launchpad for negotiations of a multilateral investment agreement. This paper provides empirical evidence on the question of whether the contents of international investment agreements (IIAs) have gradually converged to facilitate the multilateralisation of investment rules. We find that IIAs negotiated among non-G20 countries are more similar to each other than those concluded by G20 countries in general and even more so since 2000 in particular. This result calls into question the premise that the G20 can serve as the most suitable forum to initiate multilateral negotiations on multilateral investment rules. Instead, an extended analysis using different country grouping criteria suggests that the Member States of the European Union may be a more suitable alternative in this regard. Here, the EU can jointly take a leading role in facilitating related negotiations on multilateral investment rules.

中文翻译：

---

G20 能否作为多边投资协议的发射台？

管理外国投资的国际体系高度分散，主要由双边协议组成。随着 2016 年全球投资政策制定九项指导原则的通过，一些观察家认为 G20 实际上可以作为多边投资协定谈判的启动平台。本文就国际投资协定（IIAs）的内容是否逐渐趋同以促进投资规则多边化的问题提供了经验证据。我们发现非 G20 国家之间谈判的 IIA 比 G20 国家达成的 IIA 更相似，尤其是自 2000 年以来更是如此。这一结果对G20可以作为最适合发起多边投资规则多边谈判的前提提出质疑。相反，使用不同国家分组标准的扩展分析表明，在这方面，欧盟成员国可能是更合适的替代方案。在这方面，欧盟可以共同发挥主导作用，推动多边投资规则的相关谈判。