Investor-State dispute settlement mechanisms (ISDS) are an important component of most International Investment Agreements (IIAs) and have significant influence on how disputes between States and investors are resolved. This statistical survey of a large sample of 1,660 bilateral investment...

Governments have been examining the potential role of joint government interpretations of investment treaties at OECD-hosted intergovernmental investment roundtables. Now well-established in the model BITs and treaty practice of the NAFTA governments, express provisions for such joint...

Many governments have expressed concerns about the uncertainty linked to the perceived inconsistency of treaty interpretation in Investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS). An OECD-hosted intergovernmental investment roundtable has been considering a range of tools through which governments can...

This paper reviews alleged societal benefits and costs of International Investment Agreements (IIAs) as suggested by academia, governments, business and civil society. It sets out the wide range of issues that diverse actors have proposed in the context of assessing the societal benefits and...

The backlash against the expansive interpretation of key disciplines of international investment law by arbitral tribunals has prompted a host of strategies, implemented mostly by developing countries, aimed at walking away from the system. These range from denouncing the ICSID Convention and...

This paper takes an empirical, practical approach to test the proposition that systemic integration leads to greater coherence of international law. It builds on work by Professor Campbell McLachlan and others that specific treaty-based regimes can be located in the broader context of...

This study aims to explore the ‘clash of cultures’ between international investment law and international cultural law. When countries pursue economic growth, their policy makers may have an incentive to lower cultural standards to promote economic activities. If states nonetheless maintain...

On 15 August 2009, the Agreement on Investment of the Framework Agreement on Comprehensive Economic Cooperation between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations was signed in Bangkok, Thailand. The Investment Agreement is the last one of the ASEAN-China free trade agreements. This...

This paper analyzes the impact of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) on sovereign bond returns of 25 emerging markets from 1993 to 2016. Under a BIT, foreign investors can use an international arbitration scheme to enforce compensation claims against the domestic government in case of direct...

Depoliticisation of investment dispute settlement is considered to be one of the principal reasons and advantages of investor-State arbitrations. This paper considers the added value that the depoliticisation vocabulary brings to the resolution of modern challenges. First of all, equating...