CIL’s Head of Trade and Investment Law and Policy, Prof. Michael Ewing-Chow along with CIL’s RA Junianto James Losari were invited to attend the first Forum on International Trade and Investment (FORTRIN) meeting. Former WTO Deputy Director General Alejandro Jara, now with King & Spalding hosted the meeting. Michael and James attended by videoconference from the King & Spalding office in New York, together with Prof. Karl Sauvant of the Vale Centre of Columbia University. The meeting was attended trade and investment experts from Geneva, London, Paris, Washington DC, and New York all linked by videoconference. FORTRIN aims to provide a platform to promote the application and development of trade and investment rules with a view to bolstering the global legal framework for international economic law activity. During the first meeting, the discussion revolved around how to frame the issues of current investment rules. This is an important foundation if a multilateral approach on investment rules were to be proposed. In his intervention, Prof. Michael Ewing-Chow suggested a way to contextualize the current issues by looking through the global value chains lens, as governments will be more interested in exploring further the idea of multilateral investment agreement if they can be more integrated to the value chains. The discussion also touched upon several challenges to this effort, among others: the growing reluctance of governments in being subjected to Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), the need for a better fact-finding procedure in international arbitration, the need to address burning issues such as abusive treaty shopping, and the need to educate the stakeholders, including the civil society. Preparations are required to deal with these matters before one can move towards creating a multilateral investment framework.