For Immediate Release: May 5, 2026
Bogotá, Colombia and Washington, DC — The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) commends Colombia for its leadership in advancing discussions over investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) in recent weeks. In Bogotá, from May 2 to 4, Colombia’s Ministry of Education and the Progressive International cohosted the conference “Economía para la Vida: Towards a New International Economic Order,” where ISDS emerged as a central concern, with many participants calling for its elimination. CEPR welcomed this momentum and highlighted Colombia’s role in driving it. Earlier, in Santa Marta, from April 24 to 29, Colombia organized, jointly with the Netherlands, the “First International Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels,” the first global climate forum to place ISDS on the agenda. CEPR applauds the participants at this conference for their engagement on ISDS — which poses a significant obstacle to efforts to move away from hydrocarbons — while noting with concern that the initial takeaways document dilutes the broad consensus reached on this issue.
“Governments at Santa Marta were right to call out ISDS as a major obstacle to transitioning away from fossil fuels,” CEPR Director of International Policy Alexander Main said. “The countries represented at the conference account for 32 percent of the global economy and 25 percent of the world’s population — as such, there is much that they can accomplish if they work closely together.”
The Santa Marta conference included representatives of national and subnational governments, academia, NGOs, trade unions, Indigenous peoples, youth groups, women and diversity organizations, and the private sector who not only actively contributed to discussions but also, in many cases, emphasized that ISDS acts as a barrier to transitioning away from fossil fuels. A second conference, to be cohosted by Tuvalu and Ireland, is being planned for 2027 in Tuvalu.
Some participating governments, including Colombia’s ― as well as hundreds of leading economists and legal scholars (including CEPR economists and legal experts) ― have warned that ISDS threatens countries’ efforts to transition away from fossil fuels. ISDS allows corporations to sue governments over lost “future profits” by arguing that regulations intended, e.g., to curb greenhouse gas emissions impede or prevent their planned projects. In March, following a CEPR co-convened conference examining the incompatibility of ISDS with a just energy transition, Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced that Colombia would withdraw from ISDS, setting an example for other countries to follow.
As the Santa Marta conference was underway, Colombia was hit with a new ISDS case, a sobering reminder of the risks the mechanism poses and the urgency in preventing its use by foreign investors, including fossil fuel corporations, to challenge public policy. The claim was filed by energy company TermoCandelaria Power under the Colombia-Spain investment treaty. Details of the case are yet to be made public, but the company’s operations rely primarily on fossil fuels, particularly natural gas.
Colombian Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development Irene Vélez noted that CEPR will be among the organizations accompanying countries’ efforts within follow-up conferences as they make necessary reforms to move away from fossil fuel dependence, including through the termination of legal instruments with ISDS. CEPR was one of the few nongovernmental stakeholders with a seat at high-level discussions at Santa Marta, where it leveraged its participation to help inform governments on the need to eliminate ISDS.
“A number of countries present at Santa Marta already recognize that ISDS is a barrier to a just transition away from fossil fuels and that it must be addressed collectively. The moment is ripe for them to launch and lead a working group to drive a coordinated exit from ISDS,” said Guillaume Long, Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), who attended the conferences.
Conference discussions began from a shared recognition that ISDS poses a barrier, but the conference press release failed to reflect this broad consensus, with the cohosts’ takeaways document reducing the issue to ISDS being “perceived as creating barriers by some.” This characterization understates the breadth of agreement and likely reflects the Netherlands’ resistance to stronger language on ISDS, as suggested by its own admission — reported by POLITICO — that Colombia and the Netherlands “do not agree on the role of ISDS in the climate transition.”
“Colombia has been leading by example recently, with President Petro’s announcement to withdraw from the regime. However, Colombia cannot take on the task of dismantling the global ISDS system alone. It is time for other countries to rise to the moment and commit to refraining from adopting national and international legal instruments that include ISDS provisions or that promote and protect fossil fuel investments. They should also commit to terminating or withdrawing from existing instruments, and to pursuing mutual treaty termination to neutralize sunset clauses,” said Mario Osorio, Research Fellow at CEPR, who also attended both conferences.
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