This paper investigates the design and implications of international investment agreements. These are ubiquitous, potent and heavily criticized state-to-state treaties that protect foreign investment against host country policies. We show that optimal agreements cause national but not global...

It is often claimed that investment treaties will dissuade host countries from phasing out foreignowned CO2-intensive production. This paper uses a very simple economic framework to examine how such a problem might be alleviated through treaty reform, including increased carve-outs from...

Halting the ongoing global loss of biodiversity will require extensive phase-out of harmful production. A significant share of the affected production will be foreign-owned, and can therefore potentially be covered by investment treaties. These treaties are sometimes alleged to dissuade host...

Protecting biodiversity will require the phase-out of harmful production at a large scale. However, some of these stranded investments will be foreign-owned, and can therefore be protected by the more than 2,600 investment treaties that are in force worldwide. These treaties' compensation...

International investment agreements have provoked intense criticism in the policy debate during recent years. Particularly contentious has been their "ISDS" mechanisms, which enable investors to litigate against host countries. This paper examines whether host countries would be better off with...

International investment agreements have become increasingly controversial. The agreements are alleged to be beset with a large number of deficiencies that harm host countries in particular. For instance, they are said to cause "regulatory chill", to distorts investment patterns, and to lead to...

There is widespread concern, especially in certain feminist circles, that a market-oriented economic system, or capitalism, disfavors women. This could take many forms, such as lower wages for the same type of work, reduced career opportunities, disparities in ownership and the upholding of...

Almost all WTO dispute panels exceed their statutory time limits. This is often seen to indicate a more general problem for panels to manage their tasks. The time required varies considerably across panels however, suggesting that they do not face the same problems. To shed light on these...

This study contributes to the debate concerning the appropriate role of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) in in WTO dispute settlement. Its distinguishing feature is that it seeks to address this relationship in light of the reason why the parties have chosen to separate their...

This paper surveys the law and economics literature on WTO dispute settlement. As a background, we first briefly lay out main features of the legal framework, and discuss possible roles of a dispute settlement mechanism. We then discuss the two main themes in the empirical literature on dispute...