Resources and Events

The BRIC States and Outward Foreign Direct Investment
By David Collins, Oxford University Press, 2013
This book examines the relatively recent and under-explored phenomenon of outward foreign direct investment from the large emerging market countries, focusing on the four BRIC states (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) and on the services sector, meaning primarily telecommunications, finance, and transport. It considers the international legal framework governing FDI, discussing the nature and extent of the bilateral and regional investment treaty commitments undertaken by each of the BRIC states, including their commitments under the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services, as well as their obligations as members of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The book is available to order here: http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199652716.do

Investment Law within International Law: Integrationist Perspectives
Edited by Freya Baetens, Cambridge University Press, 2013
Developments within various sub-fields of international law influence international investment law, but changes in investment law also have an impact on the evolution of other fields within international law. Through contributions from leading scholars and practitioners, this book analyses specific links between investment law and other sub-fields of international law, such as the law on armed conflict, human rights, sustainable development, trade, development and EU law. In particular, this book scrutinises how concepts, principles and rules developed in the context of such sub-fields could inform the content of investment law. Solutions aimed at resolving problems in other settings may provide instructive examples for addressing current problems in the field of investment law, and vice versa. The underlying question is whether key sub-fields of public international law, notably international investment law, are open to cross-fertilisation, or, whether they are evolving further into self-contained regimes. The book is available to order here: http://www.cambridge.org/asia/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9781107038882

Liberalization or Litigation? Time to Rethink the International Investment Regime
By Simon Lester, Cato Institute, July 2013
This policy brief argues that current international investment rules are not well calibrated to liberalizing foreign investment. Instead of offering a simple and direct policy of liberalization, they incorporate vague legal principles that provide numerous opportunities for litigation, and in doing so they undermine the more basic principle of treating foreign and domestic investment equally. If international rules are to be used at all in this area, a focus on non-discrimination, and a more flexible legal framework, would be preferable to the existing system. In response the paper proposes the following reforms to the system: any rules in this area should be multilateral, not bilateral or regional; the core principle should be non-discrimination, with some of the broader principles currently in effect taken out; and state-state dispute settlement should be used, rather than investor-state. Rules along these lines would better reflect the current state of foreign investment flows, promote foreign investment, and maintain domestic regulatory autonomy. The paper is available here: http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa730_web.pdf

Towards a New Generation of International Investment Policies: UNCTAD’s Fresh Approach to Multilateral Investment Policymaking
United Nations Conference on Trade and Sustainable Development, July 2013
This UNCTAD IIA Issues Note was originally prepared for a 2013 investment seminar organized by Finland’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs. The note discusses a recent paradigm shift in investment policymaking that has come about as a result of changing economic realities and multiple crises, and has resulted in inclusive growth and sustainable development becoming increasingly prominent objectives for IIA stakeholders. The note addresses the multiple issues facing international investment policymaking, and identifies four main challenges: how to strengthen the sustainability dimension of international investment agreements; how to preserve appropriate regulatory space for host countries; how to deal with the complexity of a fragmented treaty regime characterized by overlaps and incoherence; and how to address serious deficiencies in investor-state dispute settlement. The paper is available to download here: http://unctad.org/en/pages/newsdetails.aspx?OriginalVersionID=576&Sitemap_x0020_Taxonomy=Investment and Enterprise;#607;#International Investment Agreements (IIA);#20;#UNCTAD Home

Events

October

10 – 11

International Investment Agreements – Balancing Sustainable Development and Investment Protection, Free University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany, http://www.jura.fu-berlin.de/en/fachbereich/einrichtungen/oeffentliches-recht/lehrende/hindelangs/Berlin_Oct__2013

November

4-5

Bridging the Gap between International Investment Law and the Environment, Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment, the School of Law of Utrecht University and the Center for Sustainability of Nyenrode Business University, The Hague, Netherlands, http://www.iilconference.com/

4-6

Seventh Annual Forum of Developing Country Investment Negotiators, International Institute for Sustainable Development, South Centre, and the government of Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia, http://www.IISD.org/investment/dci/

7

Salient Issues in International Commercial Arbitration, American University, Washington College of Law, Washington, DC. United States, https://www.wcl.american.edu/arbitration/symposium.cfm

8

The Role of the State in Investor-State Arbitration, World Trade Institute and University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland, http://www.wti.org/news-archive/call-for-papers-the-role-of-the-state-in-investor-state-arbitration/

14

Investment Incentives – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Assessing the Costs, Benefits and Options for Policy Reform, Columbia University, New York, United States, http://www.vcc.columbia.edu/content/eighth-columbia-international-investment-conference-investment-incentives-good-bad-and-ugly-