International investment law is one of the fastest growing areas of international law. It has led to the signing of thousands of agreements, mostly in the form of investment contracts and bilateral investment treaties. Also, in the last two decades, there has been an exponential growth in the number of disputes being resolved by investment arbitration tribunals. Yet the legal principles at the basis of international investment law and arbitration remain in a state of flux. Perhaps the best illustration of this phenomenon is the wide disagreement among investment tribunals on some of the core concepts underpinning the regime, such as investment, property, regulatory powers, scope of jurisdiction, applicable law, or the interactions with other areas of international law. The purpose of this book is to revisit these conceptual foundations in order to shed light on the practice of international investment law. It is an attempt to bridge the growing gap between the theory and the practice of this thriving area of international law. The first part of the book focuses on the 'infrastructure' of the investment regime or, more specifically, on the structural arrangements that have been developed to manage foreign investment transactions and the potential disputes arising from them. The second part of the book identifies the common conceptual bases of an array of seemingly unconnected practical problems in order to clarify the main stakes and offer balanced solutions. The third part addresses the main sources of 'regime stress' as well as the main legal mechanisms available to manage such challenges to the operation of the regime. Overall, the book offers a thorough investigation of the conflicting theoretical positions underlying international investment law, testing their worth by reference to concrete issues that have arisen in the jurisprudence. It demonstrates that many of the most important practical questions arising in practice can be addressed by a carefully dosed resort to theory.

This book provides an ideal introduction to the fundamentals of international investment law and dispute settlement for students, scholars, and practitioners. It combines a systematic analytical study of the texts and principles underlying investment law with a jurisprudential analysis of the case law arising in international tribunals.

Written by leading experts in the field, this collection offers a critical and comparative analysis of the existing case law on international investment law. The book makes a topical contribution to the existing literature, showing most notably that: (1) international investment law has a longer history than that generally considered and that this history is fundamental to understanding its development; (2) international investment law is crafted today by a large number of actors. These include not only investment arbitrators, but also a variety of international and national courts and tribunals; and (3) the literature and case law in languages other than English and from different legal cultures is essential to grasp the essence of the development of the topic. This book brings together more than 40 experts from different countries and legal traditions and combines conceptual analysis and archival investigation of landmark case law to provide the reader with a fresh and innovative understanding of the breadth of international investment law.

At first glance, one may think of international investment law as a response to custom (or lack thereof), instead of a field of its application. However, in fact, the opposite is the case. The interpretation and application of customary rules and principles are the bread and butter of international investment law and arbitration. With a diverse range of expert contributors, this collection traces how customary international law is practised in international investment law. It considers how custom should be interpreted and how its rules and principles should be understood and applied by investor-state arbitral tribunals. Raising and addressing vital questions surrounding custom and international law, this collection is a necessary contribution to the scholarship of the theory and history of customary international law and international investment law. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Several themes emerge in this 2014-2015 edition of the Yearbook. The first is a notable focus on country and region-specific developments. Different articles focus on key developments in such countries as Australia, Brazil, China, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Russia, and South Africa. Others focus on regional innovations, in particular in Latin America. A second area of attention is reform, and proposals for reform, in investor-state dispute settlement and in investment law generally. The third theme is the continued concern about states' regulatory autonomy and the importance of their retaining ability to protect the interests of their nationals. A fourth theme concerns the continued contribution that investment arbitration makes to the development of international law, and the influence that it is starting to have on other areas of law, whether that is as a source of inspiration in the interpretation of other norms or as a source of potentially powerful persuasive authority given the "teeth" that investment law has with respect to enforcement. Included are the winning memorials of the FDI Moot for both 2014 and 2015. In 2014 a team from the University of Ottawa submitted the winning claimant's memorial, while students from Harvard Law School submitted the winning respondent's memorial. In 2015, Harvard repeated its stellar performance, again winning best respondent's memorial. The winning claimant's memorial in 2015 was submitted by students from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. These excellent memorials reveal once again the growing interest of students in international investment law and demonstrate a striving for excellence and an enthusiasm for grappling with intellectually challenging issues.

A theoretical analysis of the structure of expropriation in investment law, investigating the foundations for contemporary scholarship and practice.

International investment law is one of the fastest growing areas of international law. It has led to the signing of thousands of agreements, mostly in the form of investment contracts and bilateral investment treaties. Also, in the last two decades, there has been an exponential growth in the number of disputes being resolved by investment arbitration tribunals. Yet the legal principles at the basis of international investment law and arbitration remain in a state of flux. Perhaps the best illustration of this phenomenon is the wide disagreement among investment tribunals on some of the core concepts underpinning the regime, such as investment, property, regulatory powers, scope of jurisdiction, applicable law, or the interactions with other areas of international law. The purpose of this book is to revisit these conceptual foundations in order to shed light on the practice of international investment law. It is an attempt to bridge the growing gap between the theory and the practice of this thriving area of international law. The first part of the book focuses on the 'infrastructure' of the investment regime or, more specifically, on the structural arrangements that have been developed to manage foreign investment transactions and the potential disputes arising from them. The second part of the book identifies the common conceptual bases of an array of seemingly unconnected practical problems in order to clarify the main stakes and offer balanced solutions. The third part addresses the main sources of 'regime stress' as well as the main legal mechanisms available to manage such challenges to the operation of the regime. Overall, the book offers a thorough investigation of the conflicting theoretical positions underlying international investment law, testing their worth by reference to concrete issues that have arisen in the jurisprudence. It demonstrates that many of the most important practical questions arising in practice can be addressed by a carefully dosed resort to theory.

International investment law is in transition. Whereas the prevailing mindset has always been the protection of the economic interests of individual investors, new developments in international investment law have brought about a paradigm shift. There is now more than ever before an interest in a more inclusive, transparent, and public regime. Shifting Paradigms in International Investment Law addresses these changes against the background of the UNCTAD framework to reform investment treaties. The book analyses how the investment treaty regime has changed and how it ought to be changing to reconcile private property interests and the state's duty to regulate in the public interest. In doing so, the volume tracks attempts in international investment law to recalibrate itself towards a more balanced, less isolated, and increasingly diversified regime. The individual chapters of this edited volume address the contents of investment agreements, the system of dispute settlement, the interrelation of investment agreements with other areas of public international law, constitutional questions, and new regional perspectives from Europe, South Africa, the Pacific Rim Region, and Latin America. Together they provide an invaluable resource for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers. The individual chapters of this edited volume address the contents of investment agreements, the system of dispute settlement, the interrelation of investment agreements with other areas of public international law, constitutional questions, and new regional perspectives from Europe, South Africa, the Pacific Rim Region, and Latin America. Together they provide an invaluable resource for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers.

We are in the presence of a recent scientific paper, an analysis prepared with professionalism, which deals with a topic of great relevance in the inter-human and inter-state relations that contemporaneity has brought to today's society. The paper aims to know the international law of investment as a require to understand the connection between international investment and the science of law, and can be used as a subject (course) of university study. Mrs. Cristina Popa Tache, PhD., presented several proposals aimed at contributing to the regulation of the legal regime of foreign investment and concluded that it can be seen that the legal regime of foreign investment can evolve only through cooperation in this area of all specialists to strengthen legislative, economic and social cohesion, by creating a comprehensive legislative framework, as well as by promoting appropriate government policies. I would like to accentuate once again the special value of this research work in the international context of a topic full of interest in current international relations. Recommending the reading of a wide circle of people interested in the field of international foreign investment law, I am convinced that those who know this monograph will considerably enrich their information in view of understanding a very current and useful phenomenon for this field of information and legal culture. PhD. Ianfred Silberstein

The rapidly growing number of investors’ disputes with states and the approach of arbitral tribunals, perceived by some, whether rightly or not, as being too investor-friendly, underlie a contentious debate about the need to strike a more effective balance between investors’ rights under international investment agreements (IIAs) and the right of states to pursue legitimate regulation in the public interest. In this regard the European Union, with the exclusive external competence in foreign direct investment vested in it under the Lisbon Treaty, is emerging as the leader and driving force in the future development of international investment law. This book examines the competence of the EU to conclude investment treaties in the light of the investment protection rules of IIAs, explores how far the EU regime for cross-border investment and investors’ rights under IIAs can be considered comparable, and brings about an extensive analysis of existing agreements of Member States and their compatibility with EU law, with detailed investigation of how the potentially conflicting obligations of Member States under the two regimes can be reconciled. The book covers such elements of the debate as the following: • ‘standards of treatment’ under IIAs; • investment-related provisions of EU law; • dispute settlement mechanisms and the conduct of investment disputes; • how recent controversies over bilateral investment treaties (BITs) shape emerging EU international investment policy; • effect of political and institutional interests; • transitional arrangements for BITs between Member States and third countries established by Regulation 1219/2012; • CJEU decisions concerning BITs concluded between EU Member States and third countries; • significant arbitral awards involving intra-EU BITs; • allocation of international responsibility for breaches of investors’ rights; • intra-EU dimension of the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT); • possibilities for review of arbitral awards by courts of Member States; • desirability of international protection of foreign investment in developed countries; and • role of the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States (ICSID Convention) The author provides a number of well-grounded recommendations, taking into account throughout the legitimate interests and expectations of individual investors. As an invaluable commentary on developments related to the interplay between international investment law and EU law, and a guide to ameliorating the tensions and controversies surrounding this relationship, this book will appeal to a wide variety of readers. The questions dealt with are faced not only by negotiators and others involved in policymaking in the area of foreign investment, but also by specialists in international investment law, investment arbitration, EU international relations law, and anyone involved in cross-border law, as well as others who encounter these questions in the course of their professional or academic activities.