The Impact of Investment Treaty Law on Host State Behavior <i>Some Doctrinal, Empirical, and Interdisciplinary Insights</i>

Sattorova, Mavluda ORCID: 0000-0002-9712-1858 (2015) The Impact of Investment Treaty Law on Host State Behavior <i>Some Doctrinal, Empirical, and Interdisciplinary Insights</i>. In: The Role of the State in Investor-State Arbitration. Brill | Nijhoff, pp. 162-186. ISBN 978-90-04-28224-7

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Abstract

This chapter is intended as a mapping exercise to introduce a project which examines the effectiveness of international investment law, with particular focus on the role of international investment treaties in fostering good governance and rule of law on a national plane. The aim of the project is to analyze if investment treaty rules and remedies can have a transformative effect on the behavior of governmental agencies and officials in host States. Originally conceived with a view to protecting foreign undertakings from opportunistic governmental behavior, international investment treaties have gradually come to be interpreted as also requiring host States to maintain good governance standards in their dealings with foreign investors. Lack of transparency, stability, predictability as well as the lack of effective remedies and enforcement mechanisms at a national level can now lead to a host State’s liability in damages. The scope of investment treaty protection—and the extent of host State exposure to international arbitral review and monetary liability—has dramatically expanded, enabling investors to challenge a diverse range of national measures in an infinite variety of socio-economic settings. One of the emerging justifications for this expansion of international investment law is that the global network of treaties and its arbitration mechanism can act as (i) a catalyst of regulatory reform in host States or (ii) a substitute of otherwise lacking and ineffective governmental institutions in host States. The project will test these claims and examine the role of international investment law in promoting the rule of law and good governance at a national level. Can investment treaty remedies induce governments into compliance with the rule of law and good governance standards? To what extent and how do investment treaty norms influence government decision-making in host states? How do host States respond to investment treaty remedies? To answer these questions, the project will undertake a critical analysis of evolving objectives and scope of international investment law. This will be followed by socio-legal and interdisciplinary analysis of the impact, both ex ante and ex post, of international investment law on governmental conduct. The capacity of the investment treaty regime to foster the rule of law and good governance reforms in host States will also be examined from a comparative perspective, with focus on the rule of law and regulatory compliance initiatives undertaken by the World Bank, IMF, and the European Union The overarching aim of the project is to offer an exposition of the evolving international investment law, examine the function of its remedial mechanism, and to engage with the hitherto underexplored questions of effectiveness and compliance in the investment treaty context. The aim of this chapter is to introduce some of the key research questions of the project and outline some of the principal strands of the argument. In particular, the chapter will focus on the genesis of the good governance arguments in investment treaty law and scholarship, as well as setting the stage for a socio-legal, interdisciplinary and comparative inquiry into the investment treaty regime’s power to bring about change in domestic legal and bureaucratic culture.

Item Type:	Book Section
Subjects:	?? K1 ?? ?? KZ ??
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	10 Dec 2014 15:34
Last Modified:	05 Oct 2023 09:26
DOI:	10.1163/9789004282254_010
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/2003407