Karl P. Sauvant (born 1944) is Senior Fellow at the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI), Columbia University, New York City. He was also Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School between 2006 and 2023 and Co-director of the Millennium Cities Initiative (2006-2011). He was Director of the Investment and Enterprise Division at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) from 2001 to 2005, where, before that, he also served for many years as Chief of the research section.
After his career in the United Nations (which he had joined in 1973), Sauvant established, in January 2006 and thanks to Jeffrey D. Sachs, what became the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, serving as its Executive Director until February 2012.
My current interests focus on three areas:
- Issues related to attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) and benefitting from it, especially as far as developing countries are concerned; investment facilitation is particularly important in this respect.
- Issues related to improving the international investment law and policy regime, to make it more supportive of sustainable development.
- Helping developing countries negotiate favourable contracts with international investors.