This paper analyzes how the unlikely event of an International Framework Agreement between Chiquita and Latin American banana unions came about in 2001. It provides background on IFAs, discusses the terms of the Chiquita-COLSIBA IFA, and analyzes the negotiating positions of the corporate and...

The past few decades have witnessed the growth of an exciting debate in the legal academy about the tensions between economic pressures to commodify and philosophical commitments to the market inalienability of certain items. Sex, organs, babies and college athletics are among the many topics...

The aim of this article is to offer an in-depth analysis of the different legal aspects of international framework agreements (IFAs) negotiated between multinational companies and global union federations. Using examples from different agreements, the article shows the potential added value IFAs...

The ‘business and human rights’ (BHR) field emerged amidst concerns during the last thirty years over the adequacy of national legal systems and institutions in addressing transnational human rights impacts of global market integration. BHR relies on transnational governance networks and...

This paper examines theoretically and empirically the role of political risk guarantees, which bilateral investment treaties serve, in debt accumulation in low and middle income countries. The paper empirically finds that signed bilateral investment treaties with OECD countries have a positive...

Investment treaty policy increasingly interacts with business responsibilities. This scoping paper first surveys the converging approaches to responsible business conduct (RBC) and business and human rights (BHR) as reflected in the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, the United...

The absence of articulations of public goods (beyond investment protection) in most international investment treaties has led to calls for these treaties to be interpreted by reference to other areas of international law, such as international human rights law. Relying upon Article 31(3)(c) of...

Using event study methodology, we investigate whether bilateral investment protection treaties afford protection to foreign investors. Examining arbitral decisions for firms from six countries shows that firms that received awards from arbitrators gained in market value by as much as 3%. Per...

Over the past few decades, a few thousand international investment agreements have been concluded. One cornerstone of those treaties has been a straightforward model of foreign investment: an investor based in a home State that has made an investment located in the territory of a host State....

This article discusses the problem of the meaning of the term ‘worker' as used in ILO Standards, with particular reference to the principles of freedom of association, both in terms of the constitutional obligation to respect those principles, and of the core freedom of association...