Much has been recently written about the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) that has been negotiated by OECD countries. Perhaps even more has been said by the critics of those who would like to see an agreement of this kind extended among other countries. There has indeed been a great...

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...

Bilateral investment treaties (BITs) provide investors in natural resource projects with stability. Specifically, dispute settlement provisions, a feature of most modern BITs, allow investors to make claims against the host state for alleged breaches of the BIT However, some such provisions...

Foreign investors in the energy sector have long sought to secure guarantees from the host state in order to reduce future risk. The international investment law regime has fundamentally altered the legal framework for investors and host states within the energy sector. This article explores the...

I present a simple model of two representative firms embedded in an environment of institutionalized government corruption. One firm has access to foreign direct investment , but that access is limited by the quality of rule of law in the economy. I use the model to explore the question,...

Much has been recently written about the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) that has been negotiated by OECD countries. Perhaps even more has been said by the critics of those who would like to see an agreement of this kind extended among other countries. There has indeed been a great...

The paper advances the paradoxical thesis that international investment law is developing towards a multilateral system of investment protection on the basis of bilateral treaties. Despite the infinite fragmentation of substantive investment law, coupled with arbitration as a decentralized...

This paper develops an economic theory of international investment agreements, applies it to explain central features of modern investment treaties, and uses it to address a number of prominent issues in international investment litigation. The paper argues that investment agreements have a dual...