One of the most remarkable phenomena in international law during the past fifteen years has been the extraordinary increase in the number of agreements concluded relating to the protection or liberalization of foreign investment. More than 2500 such agreements now exist, with the great majority...

These are Chapters One and Five of The First Bilateral Investment Treaties: U.S. Postwar Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation Treaties, published by Oxford University Press in May 2017. Based on a review of 32,000 pages of negotiating history housed in the National Archives (as well as thousands...