International Investment Law Research Guide

Identifies six core principles underlying investment treaties (reasonableness, non-discrimination, access, transparency, and due process) and analyzes how specific treaty provisions promote these principles.

Analyzes state practice with respect to the negotiation of investment treaties and the development of model BITs. Includes commentary on model BITs from 16 jurisdictions, encompassing capital-exporting states as well as capital-importing states. Coverage also extends to the North American Free Trade Agreement, whose chapter on foreign direct investment has served as a model for trade negotiators.

The author explores the sensitive issues of renegotiating investor-state contracts and the relationship between those contracts and the overarching international investment treaties. By introducing novel insights from the field of economics, the author deconstructs the contract-treaty interaction, demonstrating that it is not only treaties that impact the underlying contracts, but also that those contracts have an effect on the way the open-textured treaty standards are interpreted.

Featuring contributions from leading practitioners and scholars, this original commentary offers article-by-article analysis of the ICSID Convention and arbitration rules, taking into account the interpretations of arbitral panels in the most significant cases.

Provides article-by-article analysis of the ICSID Convention, incorporating not just the text, but also the travaux preparatoires (the official record of the negotiations), rules and regulations adopted under the convention, the practices of arbitral tribunals, and academic writings about the convention.

Explores the complex interplay between investor protections in investment treaties and investor protections in contracts between foreign investors and host states. Examines both the jurisprudence of investment treaty interpretation and the sometimes conflicting legal concepts applied by arbitral tribunals. Includes a table of cited cases.

This collection of essays begins with an examination of the evolution of international investment treaty practice in particular jurisdictions. Subsequent essays explore how the drafting of investment treaties can be improved to better promote efficiency, legitimacy, and the sustainability of economic development.

Examines the conflicts between international investment law and human rights law, environmental law, and EU law, all of which are also primarily premised on treaties. Normative ambivalence ensues when treaty texts are in conflict, posing serious challenges to the legitimacy and utility of the investor-State arbitral system.

Fundamental questions dealt with in the study include: Are investment treaties a special category of treaty for the purpose of interpretation? To what extent are the Vienna Convention rules suited to the interpretation of investment treaties? Have tribunals developed new techniques concerning treaty interpretation? Are these techniques consistent with the Vienna Convention? How creative have arbitral tribunals been in interpreting investment treaties?

Examines the origins, structure, contents, and effects of investment treaties as a new and rapidly developing body of law. Topics covered include the scope and application of investment treaties, general treatment standards, the treatment of monetary transfers and state obligations, protections against expropriation and nationalization, as well as treaty modification and termination.

This book provides a conceptual and legal analysis of the core of investment treaty protections, focusing on both their origin and their evolution over time. It also looks at some of the more recent investment treaties that have attempted to reform the content and scope of investor protections. The author concludes that, from the very beginning, the protections afforded to foreign investors by modern investment treaties have been exceptionally broad and restrictive of host states' ability to regulate, and that the interpretation of these standards has been marred by inconsistency and uncertainty.

Considers the application of the "temporal rule" to investment treaty disputes, examining the circumstances under which a host state may be held liable for breaching a treaty through continuing or composite actions that began prior to the treaty's ratification or entry into force.

Provides an authoritative overview of the development of the American BIT program in its historical context, including analysis of each provision of the model agreements used for investment treaty negotiation. The author also explores how individual treaties differ from the model negotiating texts.