This book reviews for the first time some of the less frequently addressed actors in international investment law. Traditional studies concerning actors in international investment law have tended to focus on arbitrators, claimant investors and respondent states. This book explores transnational actors, such as UNCITRAL, the EU, international standardizing bodies, domestic and international courts and tribunals, etc., shedding light on their transnational activity and pluralistic role in international investment law.

This open access book focuses on public actors with a role in the settlement of investment disputes. Traditional studies on actors in international investment law have tended to concentrate on arbitrators, claimant investors and respondent states. Yet this focus on the "principal" players in investment dispute settlement has allowed a number of other seminal actors to be neglected. This book seeks to redress this imbalance by turning the spotlight on the latter. From the investor's home state to domestic courts, from sub-national governments to international organisations, and from political risk insurance agencies to legal defence teams in national ministries, the book critically reviews these overlooked public actors in international investment law.

The interplay between human rights and international investment law and arbitration is a relatively recent field of enquiry, both on the academic and policy levels. But the role and responsibility of corporations in respecting human rights when they invest or operate other activities abroad has been on the international agenda since long. While the vast majority of international investment treaties do not mention human rights, States have since recently effectively included references to human rights norms in their treaties. Also, several recent cases have taken up human rights of foreign investors as part of a counterclaim raised by the host State of the foreign investment, thus showing an increased infiltration of human rights into investment law and arbitration. In this chapter, we discuss the position of foreign investors, as non-State actors, in international investment law and arbitration. We also address the question whether human rights law directly impose obligations on foreign investors as a matter of international law.

The role and position of non-state actors in international law is the subject of a long-standing and intensive scholarly debate. This book explores the participation of this new category of actors in an international legal system that has historically been dominated by states. It explores the most important issues, actors and theoretical approaches with respect to these new participants in international law. It provides the reader with a comprehensive and state-of-the-art overview of the most important legal and political developments and perspectives. Relevant non-state actors discussed in this volume include, in particular, international governmental organisations, international non-governmental organisations, multinational companies, investors and armed opposition groups. Their legal position is considered in relation to specific issue-areas, such as humanitarian law, human rights, the use of force and international responsibility. The main legal theories on non-state actors' position in international law – neo-positivism, the policy-oriented approach and transnational law – are covered at the beginning of the book, and the essential political science perspectives – on non-state actors' role in international politics and globalisation, as well as their soft power – are presented at the end.

In a context of neoliberal globalization, have the processes of elaboration and implementation of foreign investors' responsibilities by intergovernmental organizations reached the realm of legality? Using an analytical framework and a methodology that combines international law with international relations, this book provides a twofold answer to this question. First, it demonstrates that the normative integration of foreign investors' responsibilities in international investment law is fragmented and consistent with the interests of the most powerful actors. Second, while using the interactional theory of international law to assess the normative character of several international instruments elaborated and implemented by intergovernmental organizations, it highlights the sense of obligation that each instrument generates. The analysis demonstrates that such a codification process is marked by relations of power and has resulted in several social norms, with relatively few legal norms.

This important book examines the development of soft law instruments in international investment law and the feasibility of a 'codification' of the present state of this field of international economic law. It draws together the views of international experts on the use of soft law in international law generally and in discrete fields such as WTO, commercial, and environmental law. The book assesses whether investment law has sufficiently coalesced over the last 50 years to be 'codified' and focuses particularly on topical issues such as most-favoured-nation treatment and expropriation. This timely book will appeal to academics interested in the development of international law and legal theory, to those working in investment law, Government investment treaty negotiators and arbitration practitioners.

The current international investment law system is insufficiently compatible with sustainable development. To better address sustainable development concerns associated with transnational investment activities, international investment agreements should be made more compatible with sustainable development. Integrating Sustainable Development in International Investment Law presents an important systematic study of the issue of sustainable development in the international investment law system, using conceptual, normative and governance perspectives to explore the challenges and possible solutions for making international investment law more compatible with sustainable development. Chi suggests that to effectively address the sustainable development concerns associated with transnational investment activities, the international investment agreements system should be reformed. Such reform should feature redesigning the provisions of the agreements, improving the structure of international investment agreements, strengthening the function of soft law, engaging non-state actors and enhancing the dispute settlement mechanism. The book is primarily aimed at national and international treaty and policy-makers, lawyers and scholars. It is also suitable for graduate students studying international law and policy-making.

The book considers the ways in which the international investment law regime intersects with the human rights regime, and the potential for clashes between the two legal orders. Within the human rights regime states may be obligated to regulate, including a duty to adopt regulation aiming at improving social standards and conditions of living for their population. Yet, states are increasingly confronted with the consequences of such regulation in investment disputes, where investors seek to challenge regulatory interferences for example in expropriation claims. Regulatory measures may for instance interfere with the investment by imposing conditions on investors or negatively affecting the value of the investment. As a consequence, investors increasingly seek to challenge regulatory measures in international investment arbitration on the basis of a bilateral investment treaty. This book sets out the nature and the scope of the right to regulate in current international investment law. The book examines bilateral investment treaties and ICSID arbitrations looking at the indicative parameters that are granted weight in practice in expropriation claims delimiting compensable from non-compensable regulation. The book places the potential clash between the right to regulate and international investment law within a theoretical framework which describes the stability-flexibility dilemma currently inherent within international law. Lone Wandahl Mouyal goes on to set out methods which could be employed by both BIT-negotiators and adjudicators of investment disputes, allowing states to exercise their right to regulate while at the same time providing investors with legal certainty. The book serves as a valuable tool, an added perspective, for academics as well as for practitioners dealing with aspects of international investment law.

Non-state actors have always been treated with ambivalence in the works of international law. While their empirical existence is widely acknowledged and their impact and influence uncontested, non-state actors are still not in the centre of international legal research. The idea that non-state actors are not law-makers, however, stands in sharp contrast with the growing notion of non-state actors as law-takers. This book examines the position of non-state actors in international law as law-makers and law-takers and questions whether these different positions can or should be separated from each other. Each contribution reveals both the political and normative aspects of the question as well as the positivistic possibilities and constraints to accommodate non-state actors as law-takers and law-makers in the contemporary international legal system. Altogether, each expert reveals that the position of non-state actors in international law is not a fixed one but changes with the functional and theoretical perspectives of the observer. Non-State Actor Dynamics in International Law is a welcomed addition to an under researched field of legal study. An indispensable read to scholars and policy makers wishing to gain new insights into general discourse on non-state actors in international law and the process of norm formation in the international realm.

Juxtaposing perspectives, this insightful book brings together the various dimensions of the relationship between EU law and international law. As the multifaceted interplay between these two legal orders has become increasingly complex with expanding EU policy areas and the development of the EU as a global (normative) actor, this book offers a timely contribution to this important field of study.