Traditionally, the vested interests of states concluding bilateral investment treaties (BITs) fell into two categories: on the side of capital-exporting states, an interest in adopting strong protections for foreign investors; on the side of capital-importing states, an interest in attracting...

The author introduces Gehring's call for a multi-lateralization of Impact Assessments (IAs). IA processes in Canada, the US and the EU illustrate the complex nature of IAs and their challenges in a rapidly evolving international investment law and policy regime. IAs have expanded to include...

In an earlier era, treaties of Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation (FCNs) were the primary international law mechanism through which the U.S. government sought to promote and protect foreign investment. Conventional wisdom holds that FCNs are of only limited historical interest, having been...

An investment chapter in TTIP offers an unprecedented opportunity to reform and improve the system of investment law. If the EU and the US seize this opportunity, it would set an important precedent in treaty-drafting, allowing for the incorporation of public policy objectives, thereby...

This paper presents an informal cost-benefit analysis of the inclusion of investment protection provisions, including investor-state arbitration, in an investment chapter in TTIP. The analysis is conducted from the perspective of the EU and its member states. It argues that there is little...

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...