International investment agreements (IIAs) almost universally define their temporal validity and thus set conditions for States' exit from these treaties.This study presents the results of the survey of language that determines the temporal validity of 2,061 bilateral investment agreements that...

Governments are facing an increasing number of arbitration claims by foreign investors relating to important public policies or seeking substantial damages, and many governments are taking a greater joint interest in how such cases are resolved in investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). This...

Investment treaty law reflects a permanent tension between stability and flexibility. Stability nurtures predictability, while flexibility helps legal systems stay in alignment with changing circumstances and evolving needs. This paper establishes an inventory of the mechanisms in investment...

This paper was prepared by Katia Yannaca-Small, Legal Advisor, Investment Division, Directorate for Financial and Enterprise Affairs, OECD. Thanks are due to Catriona Paterson, a consultant to the Investment Division, for research input. It has been developed as an input to the Investment...

International, bilateral and regional agreements have proliferated in the last ten years to twenty years and new ones are still being negotiated. It is thus virtually certain that for some more time to come international investment disciplines will continue to co-exist side by side with...

Investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms embodied in most investment treaties provide rights to foreign investors to seek redress for damages arising out of alleged breaches by host governments of investment-related obligations. The system of investment dispute settlement has borrowed its...

Bilateral and regional investment agreements have proliferated in the last decade and new ones are still being negotiated. Most-Favoured-Nation (MFN) clauses link investment agreements by ensuring that the parties to one treaty provide treatment no less favourable than the treatment they provide...

It is a well recognised rule in international law that the property of aliens cannot be taken, whether for public purposes or not, without adequate compensation. Two decades ago, the disputes before the courts and the discussions in academic literature focused mainly on the standard of...

The obligation to provide “fair and equitable treatment” is often stated, together with other standards, as part of the protection due to foreign direct investment by host countries. It is an “absolute”, “non-contingent” standard of treatment, i.e. a standard that states the...

As our societies face new challenges and make new demands from policies addressing international investment, there is a new urgency to profoundly reconsider treaties addressing investment. This paper was prepared originally as background for initial inter-governmental and public discussions at...