Over the years, the substantive content of international investment agreements (IIAs) has shifted to reflect political change and to respond to lessons learnt in investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). With a focus on eight IIAs, selected with a view to geographical representativeness, this...

As China's outward foreign direct investment (FDI) has grown, its approach to international investment agreements (IIAs) has changed. China is now one of the world's most important outward investors, with Chinese FDI facing widespread criticism. The challenge for China is to adapt to this new...

The paper observes that the fragmented international investment law regime is moving toward harmonisation. In the near future, five major agreements could govern a very substantial share of global investment: a United States-China bilateral investment treaty (BIT), a European Union-China BIT,...

In this paper, I highlight that international investment law, as a subsystem, should evolve to accept rules from other subsystems of law, e.g., human rights, trade (WTO law and RTA law), and environmental. This proposed evolution would need to include the acceptance of new tools that would help...

This article makes a major contribution to the emerging Belt and Road Initiative scholarship (and international economic law) by highlighting that (i)China’s existing investment treaty network along the Belt and Road is dated, (ii) many or most of those treaties include Most Favored Nation...

Countermeasures are well recognized under Customary International Law and have been incorporated into the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding as a mechanism to facilitate compliance, subject to an authorization by the WTO Dispute Settlement Body. However, such a countermeasure — increased...

The agricultural sector, and in particular plant breeding, is one area where this flexibility of intellectual property rights (IPR) is quite broad. This note argues that policymakers need to pay close attention to the role that IPRs can play in agricultural development by providing incentives...

This work deals with the question whether an 'EU model' contributing to the development of international investment law may be envisaged. The new competence on FDI conferred to the EU under the Treaty of Lisbon, especially if it is considered in the context of the quot;new regionalismquot;...