Law and democracy in the globalisation of infrastructure as an asset class

Abstract

In 2018, the G20 endorsed the ‘Roadmap to Infrastructure as an Asset Class’. This document crystallizes a roaring policy agenda focused on transforming ‘infrastructure’ into a homogeneous, tradeable investment opportunity, attractive to global financial markets. Although the Roadmap is formally a mere policy blueprint, this article studies it as a legal document—one whose purpose is to code infrastructures into capital. Specifically, the article makes three claims, two analytical and one normative. First, that the Roadmap’s way of attracting investors ultimately consists in shielding the decision-making processes related to the design and maintenance of infrastructures from democratic interference. Second, that these restrictions are enforced through global governance mechanisms that push the relevant decision-making authority from the national to the global. And third, that the Roadmap’s agenda is problematic from a democratic standpoint, because it disempowers those who should have a say over the development and maintenance of these infrastructures.