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Argentina’s curious response to the global investment regime: external constraints, identity, or both?

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Abstract

Costly investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) cases have led several developing countries to take far-reaching steps to distance themselves from the global investment regime, such as the denunciation or renegotiation of international investment agreements (IIAs) or the withdrawal from the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). Despite facing the highest number of investment claims worldwide and despite being very vocal about the shortcomings of the current regime, Argentina has neither denounced a single IIA nor renounced ICSID. This article addresses this puzzle. It first shows that under the Kirchners’ governments (2003‒2015), Argentina adopted a dual approach: maintaining its IIAs and membership in ICSID on the one hand, but vigorously fighting ISDS awards on the other. Using in-depth interviews, news reports, and secondary sources, it then demonstrates that this ‘neither-in-nor-out’ approach is best explained by a unique Argentinian identity, which combines Latin American and Western dimensions, conditioned by external political and economic constraints, especially in the immediate aftermath of the 2001 financial crisis. As such, this study underscores the need to account for both material and ideational factors when striving to grasp development-related foreign policy.

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Notes

  1. UNCTAD’s Investor State Dispute Navigator, available at http://investmentpolicyhub.unctad.org/ISDS (last accessed on 5 July, 2018).

  2. Personal Skype interview by authors with a former Argentinian government official, Tel Aviv and Buenos Aires, 13 April, 2017.

  3. We have contacted nearly twenty current and former officials and politicians with a request for an interview. Given the sensitivity of this issue in Argentina, most officials did not respond to our request or declined it. Nevertheless, three former officials were more forthcoming. We therefore interviewed two former high-ranking officials in the Ministry of Finance and one former legal counsel to the General Attorney’s Office of Argentina; all three were highly involved in relevant decision-making processes, shaping the country’s response to investment claims. To protect their anonymity, we do not identify them by name, but rather as ‘former Argentinian government officials’. With all three, we conducted an hour-long semi-structure interviews (the questionnaire and protocols are on file with the authors).

  4. This term refers to the period between 2003 and 2015, in which Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner led Argentina sequentially, holding a similar ideology and advancing a similar set of policies and political agendas.

  5. Brazil, in contrast, signed only fourteen BITs in the 1990s and ratified none (Campello and Lemos 2015).

  6. For a comprehensive analysis of the causes of the crisis, see Damill et al. (2005).

  7. https://investmentpolicyhub.unctad.org/ISDS/CountryCases/8?partyRole=2 (last accessed on 21 December, 2018).

  8. Named after Horacio Rosatti, former Attorney General of the Treasury’s Office (2003‒2004) and former Minister of Justice (2004‒2005), who advanced this approach.

  9. Some scholars argue that Argentina’s stalling tactics in arbitration proceedings amounts to renouncing the Regime (Maurer 2013; Kaushal 2009). While these policies were certainly disruptive, they were mostly reactive. We highlight the point that Argentina could have adopted additional, more proactive, measures, but did not.

  10. Five BITs—with Bolivia, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, and South Africa – were terminated in recent years. They were all unilaterally denounced by Argentina’s partners, however.

  11. https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09BUENOSAIRES451_a.html (last accessed on 14 February, 2016).

  12. Personal Skype interview by authors with a former Argentinian government official, Tel Aviv and Buenos Aires, 23 May, 2017.

  13. UNCTADstat (8 July, 2018).

  14. Personal Skype interview by authors with a former Argentinian government official, Tel Aviv and Buenos Aires, 23 May, 2017.

  15. Personal Skype interview by authors with a former Argentinian government official, Tel Aviv and Buenos Aires, 13 April, 2017; See also Calvert (2016, p. 212).

  16. Personal Skype interview by authors with a former Argentinian government official, Tel Aviv and Buenos Aires, 11 May, 2017.

  17. Rivera-Quiñones (2014) pushes this argument even further and suggests that Kirchnerismo was highly dependent on the soy complex to sustain its economic programmes. He concludes (2014, p. 83) that ‘the post-neoliberal macroeconomic governance, even if progressive, is subjected to the imperatives of commodity exporting TNCs’.

  18. ‘Defendió Kirchner el rol de la inversión extranjera’ ['Kirchner defended the role of foreign investment'], La Nación, 14 June, 2006, available at http://www.lanacion.com.ar/814437-defendio-kirchner-el-rol-de-la-inversion-extranjera (last accessed on 27 February, 2016).

  19. ‘Incensed Spain Threatens Argentina after YPF Seizure’, Reuters, 17 April, 2012, available at https://www.reuters.com/article/spain-argentina-ypf/wrapup-5-incensed-spain-threatens-argentina-after-ypf-seizure-idUSL2E8FHD9420120417 (last accessed on 10 July, 2018); ‘Cristina decidió la expropiación de YPF’ [Cristina decided on YPF's expropriation], La Nación, 16 April, 2012, available at https://www.lanacion.com.ar/1465449-expropiacion-de-ypf (last accessed on 17 July, 2018).

  20. In 2012, FDI in Argentina reached a peak of US$15 billion. The previous record, set in 1999, was US$23.9 billion.

  21. Personal Skype interview by authors with a former Argentinian government official, Tel Aviv and Buenos Aires, 13 April, 2017.

  22. Personal Skype interview by authors with a former Argentinian government official, Tel Aviv and Buenos Aires, 13 April, 2017.

  23. We gauged the role of identity in several questions, some more direct than others. In one example, we asked the respondents: ‘How would you describe Argentina’s role in the international system? Put differently, what kind of values does Argentina stand for and represents on the regional and global stage?’ In another question, we asked: ‘Some view Argentina as a “Western/European” country, while others view it as “Latin American”. In your view, which trait is more dominant in Argentinian identity? What is the balance between European and Latin American identities in Argentina compared to other Latin American countries?’

  24. One sensible objection is that raising the role of identity in an interview will result in a positive answer even if the respondent does not believe it is an important factor. We have mitigated this problem by going about this matter indirectly in some of the questions. We also referred to this possibility only after asking questions unrelated to identity, allowing the respondent to engage in other explanations to Argentina’s policies before bringing up the questions listed in the previous footnote. We nevertheless recognise the possibility of a ‘false positive’ and therefore treat respondents’ statements with a degree of caution.

  25. Other newspapers, such as La Nación, Clarín, and Ámbito Financiero, presented a different picture, emphasising Argentina’s contribution to the crisis and the risk of non-compliance with ICSID awards. However, in order to understand the government’s attitude, we rely mainly on Página 12.

  26. ‘No quieren que paguemos para someternos’ [They don't want us to pay, they want to subdue us], Página 12, 2 November, 2012, available at https://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpais/1-206972-2012-11-02.html (last accessed on 16 February, 2016).

  27. ‘Argentina in the process of quitting from World Bank investment disputes centre’, MercoPress, 31 January, 2013, available at http://en.mercopress.com/2013/01/31/argentina-in-the-process-of-quitting-from-world-bank-investment-disputes-centre (last accessed on 12 July, 2017).

  28. Elites’ efforts to ‘whiten’ Argentina were recently discussed in the context of racist eugenics (Rodriguez 2006).

  29. A reflection of this self-image can be found in Fernández de Kirchner’s speech in the UNGA (2012): ‘It is essential that developed countries would understand the contribution that we, the emerging countries, can make to the international economy […]. We, the emerging countries, have been global growth engines.’ Available at http://enaun.mrecic.gov.ar/content/discurso-de-la-presidenta-cristina-fernandez-de-kirchner (last accessed on 10 September, 2016).

  30. http://www.cfkargentina.com/address-by-cristina-kirchner-at-un-general-assembly-2013/ (last accessed on 27 February, 2016).

  31. ‘Cristina: “Argentina quiere pagar, puede pagar y va a pagar a los tenedores de bonos”’ [Argentina wants to pay, is able to pay, and is going to pay to the bondholders], Télam, 11 September, 2014, available at http://www.telam.com.ar/notas/201409/77859-cristina-fernandez-de-kirchner-ley-de-pago-soberano.html (last accessed on 1 June, 2017).

  32. Personal Skype interview by authors with a former Argentinian government official, Tel Aviv and Buenos Aires, 11 May, 2017.

  33. Personal Skype interview by authors with a former Argentinian government official, Tel Aviv and Buenos Aires, 11 May, 2017.

  34. Personal Skype interview by authors with a former Argentinian government official, Tel Aviv and Buenos Aires, 13 April, 2017.

  35. To be clear, we are not arguing that the Western/European identity is more important or influential than the Latin American one. Rather, we see both identities as important and do not claim that one overshadows the other. We put greater emphasis on the Western/European identity because it has received less attention and recognition in current research.

  36. ‘ICSID in crisis: Straight-jacket or investment protection?’, 10 July, 2009, available at: http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/2009/07/art-564878/ (last accessed on 11 December, 2015).

  37. Investment Treaty News (ITN), 9 May, 2007, available at http://www.iisd.org/pdf/2007/itn_may9_2007.pdf (last accessed on 12 December, 2015).

  38. Another possibility is that Argentinian businesses investing abroad have lobbied their government to keep its IIAs in order to benefit from their protection vis-à-vis host governments. We did not come across evidence consistent with this logic. If anything, one recent study argues that the ‘economic crises had drastically eroded the strength and political influence of internationally oriented business elites and elevated the voices of the poor and marginalized’ (Calvert 2018, p. 91). Given space constraints, we do not examine this factor further.

  39. ‘No quieren que paguemos para someternos’ [They don't want us to pay, they want to subdue us], Página 12, 2 November, 2012, available at http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpais/1-206972-2012-11-02.html (last accessed on 21 January, 2016). Fernández de Kirchner refers here to the fact that BITs often include a ‘survival clause’, providing that investments made prior to the BIT’s termination are protected by the treaty for an additional period.

  40. Personal Skype interview by authors with a former Argentinian government official, Tel Aviv and Buenos Aires, 11 May, 2017.

  41. Resolución Conjunta No. 117/2011 y No. 393/2011 del Ministro de Economía y Finanzas Publicas y del Ministerio de Planificaión Federal, Inversión Pública y Servicios [Joint Resolution No. 117/2011 and No. 393/2011 of the Ministry of the Treasury and the Ministry of Federal Planning, Public Investment and Services], available at http://www.infoleg.gov.ar/infolegInternet/anexos/180000-184999/180903/norma.htm (last accessed on 19 February, 2016).

  42. As Guglielmino explained: ‘We had no experience with it. No one did […] I had 29-year-olds, 30-year-olds with no experience […] But we learned quickly. We had to—the country depended on it.’ (Quoted in Edwards 2016, pp. 23‒24).

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List of Interviews Cited

  • Interview 1: Skype with a former Argentinian government official, Tel Aviv and Buenos Aires, 13 April, 2017.

  • Interview 2: Skype with a former Argentinian government official, Tel Aviv and Buenos Aires, 11 May, 2017.

  • Interview 3: Skype with a former Argentinian government official, Tel Aviv and Buenos Aires, 23 May, 2017.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Eric Arias, Roberto Domínguez, Moshe Hirsch, Arie Kacowicz, Claudia Kedar, Alexander Thompson, Daniel Wajner, and the three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions. We are also grateful for feedback from participants in a 2016 workshop on the Global Investment Regime held at the Hebrew University, the 2016 International Studies Association Convention, and the 2018 Pan-European Conference on International Relations. Last but not least, we thank the interviewees for generously sharing their experience, knowledge and insights with us.

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Correspondence to Yoram Z. Haftel.

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Haftel, Y.Z., Levi, H. Argentina’s curious response to the global investment regime: external constraints, identity, or both?. J Int Relat Dev 23, 755–780 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41268-019-00174-8

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