Comprehensive Guide to International Investment Law: Evolution, Treaties, and Jurisprudence (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: I am Surya Subedi, I am Professor of International Law and also the author of the study guide on International Investment Law. In this course, there are four sections, section A, B, C and D. Each of the sections is devoted to a certain area of International Investment Law. Section A begins with the evolution and analysis or examination of the evolution of International Investment Law and other sections go on to build on that one and deal with the International Efforts to regulate foreign investment. And the next section goes on to deal with bilateral investment treaties and other regional investment treaties as well as a free trade agreements, how they regulate foreign investment. And the final section, section D examines the case law, the rapidly developing jurisprudence if you like. What is the trend in jurisprudence? How the law has been interpreted by various international courts and tribunals? For example, the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes based in Washington DC housed under the framework of the World Bank itself is one of the members of the World Bank group and of course, there are number of other regional arbitration centers around the globe. For instance, even international arbitration centers such as the Permanent Court of Arbitration based in The Hague. So, all these international tribunals, how they have been developing, fleshing out and interpreting various provisions of International Investment Law, either based on bilateral investment treaties or regional investment treaties or general principles of International Investment Law, customary international law. For instance, what do you mean by the fair and equitable treatment? What is the origin of the concept of fair and equitable treatment? What meaning has been accorded to this principle by various international treaties, whether bilateral or regional and how international courts and tribunals have gone on to interpret this notion? Just to give an example, when talking about the evolution of International Economic Law, what role did the Calvo Doctrine had to play? How this came into about and how do you compare and contrast the Calvo Doctrine with the Hull formula? Hull formula becoming a more popular, more acceptable in both law and practice since the establishment mainly of the United Nations. A vast majority of treaties, bilateral investment treaties concluded since the establishment of the United Nations do include the Hull formula which outlines the conditions under which assets of a foreign company could be expropriated and the standard of compensation available or to be accorded or to be provided to foreign investors which have invested in a country concern. Therefore, it is basically an attempt to provide a comprehensive introduction to the world of International Investment Law. How international investment is regulated by international law? Of course, when it comes to speaking about the protection of foreign investment, you have to take into account both national law and international law. Very many countries which have attracted foreign investment have enacted their own national investment protection laws, regulations and some statutory instruments are in place to make sure that the foreign investors are protected by national law. But sometimes states which are in the process of enacting these laws would like to look at what is the international trend in both law and jurisprudence. So, whatever national law is made is informed by international law principles. Sometimes foreign investors do not wish to rely fully on national laws. So, they are looking for some additional protection that additional protection is provided by international law. Companies would like to have legal certainty and predictability when investing in other countries. That certainty and predictability is provided by both international law and national law. Since international law prevails over national law, when enacting national laws states are supposed to comply with the provisions of international investment law. In this case, mainly in the absence of a global comprehensive convention on international investment law, much of international investment law is based on customary international law. How that customary international law has come into existence, how it is operating today and how it is responding to rapidly changing world in the area of international investment protection. So, that is the focus of this course on international investment law.