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Bilateral Investment Treaties and Development Policy-Making

» Luke Eric Peterson, IISD, 2004. Book, copyright: IISD

This paper looks at the impacts of bilateral investment treaties—of which there are now over 2,000—on development-oriented policy making. It assesses the major elements of concern in the various formulations of key obligations, and the types of desirable policies they might prevent.


Bilateral Investment Treaties and Development Policy-MakingIISD Publication

Notes

Contents

1. Introduction

2. Bilateral Investment Treaties: What the Treaties Say

2.1 Typical contents
2.2 Provisions on development
2.3 Special and differential treatment

3. What the Treaties Do

3.1 Investment treaties and the stimulation of new FDI flows
3.2 Applications of the BIT protections by investors
3.3 Dispute settlement procedures

4. Investor Usage of the Treaties

4.1 Data on investment treaty arbitrations
4.2 Issues emerging in arbitrations

5. Development Linkages

5.1 Internationalization of disputes
5.2 Object and purpose of the treaty
5.3 Costs of investment treaty arbitration
5.4 Asymmetries of information
5.5 Uncertainty surrounding the meaning of key treaty provisions
5.6 The right to regulate and to introduce social insurance programs
5.7 Control over entry/establishment in the host state territory
5.8 Restricting the ability of states to impose social obligations on investors
5.9 Standards of conduct for bureaucratic and administrative agencies
5.10 Irreversibility of treaty commitments

6. Conclusions