International Protection Of Investments

This book outlines the protection standards typically contained in international investment agreements as they are actually applied and interpreted by investment tribunals. It thus provides a basis for analysis, criticism, and stocktaking of the existing system of investment arbitration. It covers all main protection standards, such as expropriation, fair and equitable treatment, full protection and security, the non-discrimination standards of national treatment and MFN, the prohibition of unreasonable and discriminatory measures, umbrella clauses and transfer guarantees. These standards are covered in separate chapters providing an overview of textual variations, explaining the origin of the standards and analysing the main conceptual issues as developed by investment tribunals. Relevant cases with quotations that illustrate how tribunals have relied upon the standards are presented in depth. An extensive bibliography guides the reader to more specific aspects of each investment standard permitting the book's use as a commentary of the main investment protection standards.

This book is a thought-provoking and authoritative text on this fast moving field of international law.

This volume celebrates the first fifty years of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) by presenting the landmark cases that have been decided under its auspices. These cases have addressed every aspect of investment disputes: jurisdictional thresholds; the substantive obligations found in investment treaties, contracts, and legislation; questions of general international law; and a number of novel procedural issues. Each chapter, written by an expert on the chapter’s particular focus, looks at an international investment law topic through the lens of one or more of these leading cases, analyzing what the case held, how it has been applied, and its overall significance to the development of international investment law. These topics include: - applicable law; - res judicata in investor-State arbitration; - notion of investment; - investor nationality; - consent to arbitration; - substantive standards of treatment; - consequences of corruption in investor-State arbitration; - State defenses - counter-claims; - assessment of damages and cost considerations; - ICSID Arbitration Rule 41(5) objections; - mass claims, consolidation and parallel proceedings; - provisional measures; - arbitrator challenges; - transparency and amicus curiae; and - annulment. Because the law of international investment continues to grow in importance in an ever globalizing world, this book is more than a fitting way to mark the past fifty years and to welcome the next fifty years of development. It will prove both educational for practitioners new to the field and informative for seasoned investment lawyers. Moreover, the book itself is a landmark that will be of great value to professionals, scholars and students interested in international investment law.

Due to the ongoing recent expansion of public interest issues worldwide, the state’s right to regulate has been recaptured as a prominent concept in international investment law. The fair and equitable treatment (FET) standard provision in the text of an international investment agreement (IIA) has become a detailed clause clarifying the specific obligations of a state towards an investor under the FET standard. However, striking the right balance between the interests of host states and investors in these new treaty formulations has proved to be challenging. This book greatly clarifies the field by offering the in-depth analysis of the application of the state’s right to regulate in relation to FET standard provisions in IIAs and to decisions by arbitral tribunals in FET cases. Recognising that the role of tribunals is to balance the state’s public interests and the interests of the investor when interpreting and applying the FET standard, the author pursues such seminal issues and topics as the following: the legitimacy of the objective of the state’s measure; obligations and responsibilities of investors towards a host state; the nature and impact of a change to a national regulatory framework; special economic and sociopolitical circumstances in a host state; and due diligence and risk assessment as a condition for the protection of an investor’s legitimate expectations. Multiple IIAs concluded by the OECD Member States, as well by Russia and China between the developing countries, and the prominent investment law cases on the FET standard are examined in detail. The analysis pays particular attention to how investment jurisprudence in FET cases has been reflected in such new IIAs as the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between the European Union (EU) and Canada (CETA), the EU-Vietnam FTA and the EU-Singapore FTA. These case studies demonstrate the evolution of the IIAs’ FET standard provisions and how they balance the application of the FET standard and the state’s right to regulate. Suggestions are provided for drafting formulations of the FET standard that can contribute to achieving such a balance. In the clear light it sheds on the legal conditions under which states may regulate in the public interest and its contribution to the reforms that are currently taking place in the field of international investment law, this book constitutes an exemplary framework to evaluate investment decisions on the FET standard and the right to regulate. It is sure to prove extremely useful for practitioners who work on investment cases, policymakers involved in negotiating and drafting of IIAs, policy advisors of governmental and non-governmental organisations and academics in international investment law.

This book provides a comprehensive study of the standard of ‘full protection and security’ (FPS) in international investment law. Ever since the Germany-Pakistan BIT of 1959, almost every investment agreement has included an FPS clause. FPS claims refer to the most diverse factual settings, from terrorist attacks to measures concerning concession contracts. Still, the FPS standard has received far less scholarly attention than other obligations under international investment law. Filling that gap, this study examines the evolution of FPS from its medieval roots to the modern age, delimits the scope of FPS in customary international law, and analyzes the relationship between FPS and the concept of due diligence in the law of state responsibility. It additionally explores the interpretation and application of FPS clauses, drawing particular attention to the diverse wording used in investment treaties, the role ascribed to custom, and the interplay between FPS and other treaty-based standards. Besides delivering a detailed analysis of the FPS standard, this book also serves as a guide to the relevant sources, providing an overview of numerous legal instruments, examples of state practice, arbitral decisions, and related academic publications about the standard.

This book analyses the adequacy of Mongolia’s legal system for foreign investment protection by conducting a multi-level assessment of international investment treaties, domestic legislation of the host State, and investor-State contracts from an international comparative perspective. The investigation distinguishes between three legal dimensions, each of which offers both substantive legal guarantees for the protection of investments in the host State and provisions for the settlement of investment disputes by arbitration. In the first dimension of Public International Law (PIL), Mongolia is bound by international investment treaties, which offer investors an international law setting. In the second dimension, a special domestic investment law defines the domestic framework for the establishment, promotion and protection of investments, but also for the conclusion of investor-State contracts. These contracts in turn open a third legal dimension, which represents a cross-section through the PIL and domestic-law dimensions of investment protection. Following the development of a multi-level system with legal dimensions that are not isolated but rather interrelated and mutually reinforcing, the book examines whether Mongolia’s international investment treaties and domestic investment law reflect globally shared international and domestic standards of treatment and protection of foreign investments. Lastly, the author inquires whether the domestic laws applicable to investor-State contracts in Mongolia allow investors and the Mongolian Government to agree on protective terms according to the (not uncontroversial) standards of international contract practice.

"Showing unambiguously that Brazil in fact enjoys a stable legal system which grants foreign direct investment the same material and procedural rights as national direct investment, the contributors to this book provide a truly informative and useful guide for those who work with law and policy in international investment."--Publisher's website

International investment law is in transition. Whereas the prevailing mindset has always been the protection of the economic interests of individual investors, new developments in international investment law have brought about a paradigm shift. There is now more than ever before an interest in a more inclusive, transparent, and public regime. Shifting Paradigms in International Investment Law addresses these changes against the background of the UNCTAD framework to reform investment treaties. The book analyses how the investment treaty regime has changed and how it ought to be changing to reconcile private property interests and the state's duty to regulate in the public interest. In doing so, the volume tracks attempts in international investment law to recalibrate itself towards a more balanced, less isolated, and increasingly diversified regime. The individual chapters of this edited volume address the contents of investment agreements, the system of dispute settlement, the interrelation of investment agreements with other areas of public international law, constitutional questions, and new regional perspectives from Europe, South Africa, the Pacific Rim Region, and Latin America. Together they provide an invaluable resource for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers. The individual chapters of this edited volume address the contents of investment agreements, the system of dispute settlement, the interrelation of investment agreements with other areas of public international law, constitutional questions, and new regional perspectives from Europe, South Africa, the Pacific Rim Region, and Latin America. Together they provide an invaluable resource for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers.

Developments within various sub-fields of international law influence international investment law, but changes in investment law also have an impact on the evolution of other fields within international law. Through contributions from leading scholars and practitioners, this book analyses specific links between investment law and other sub-fields of international law such as the law on armed conflict, human rights, sustainable development, trade, development and EU law. In particular, this book scrutinises how concepts, principles and rules developed in the context of such sub-fields could inform the content of investment law. Solutions aimed at resolving problems in other settings may provide instructive examples for addressing current problems in the field of investment law, and vice versa. The underlying question is whether key sub-fields of public international law, notably international investment law, are open to cross-fertilisation, or, whether they are evolving further into self-contained regimes.

This monograph considers the ramifications of the legal regime that governs transborder capital flows. This regime consists principally of a network of some 3,000 investment treaties, as well as a growing body of arbitral decisions. Professor Alvarez contends that the contemporary international investment regime should no longer be described as a species of territorial “empire” imposed by rich capital exporters on capital importers. He examines the evolution of investment treaties and investor-State jurisprudence constante and identifies the connections between these and general trends within public international law, including the increased resort to treaties (“treatification”), growing risks to the law’s consistency (“fragmentation”), and the proliferation of forms of international adjudication (“judicialization”). Professor Alvarez also considers whether the regime’s efforts to “balance” the needs of non-State investors and sovereigns ought to be characterized as “global administrative law”, as a form of “constitutionalization”, or as an increasingly human-rights-centred enterprise.