Recalibrating interpretive authority

In newer-style investment treaties, states are increasingly protecting and enhancing their role in interpreting and applying their treaties. This evidences an important shift underway in the investment treaty system: the recalibration of interpretive authority between treaty parties and arbitral tribunals

Incremental, Systemic, And Paradigmatic Reform Of Investor-State Arbitration

In Imperfect Alternatives: Institutional Choice and the Reform of Investment Law, Sergio Puig and Gregory Shaffer introduce comparative institutional analysis to evaluate alternative processes for resolving investment disputes. The impetus for this article is clear: many states view investor-state arbitration as akin to a horse that has bolted from the barn. Wishing to close the stable door, a wide range of states are considering the merits of various reform proposals. Puig and Shaffer's comprehensive and balanced framework for assessing the tradeoffs involved in making different choices is thus a welcome and timely intervention in these (often highly polarized) debates

协定解释权的再调整

对于在投资条约体系中进行投资者保护和国家主权之间的再平衡的呼声已被多次提出。然而，另一个同等重要的变革也在悄然进行，即协定解释权在协定各缔结方与仲裁法庭间的重新调整。在新的投资协定中，国家不断强化其在协定解读和推行中的权威地位

Protecting public welfare regulation through joint treaty party control: a ChAFTA innovation

The recent FTA between China and Australia aims to protect public welfare measures through joint treaty party control. This Perspective assesses the FTA’s mechanism in the context of broader efforts to rebalance investor protection and state sovereignty, and to recalibrate interpretive authority between arbitral tribunals and treaty parties

Complex designers and emergent design : reforming the investment treaty system

How do actors undertake institutional design in complex systems? Scholars recognize that many international regimes are becoming increasingly complex. Yet relatively little is known about how actors design or redesign institutions amid this complexity. As participant-observers in the UN negotiations on investment treaty reform, we have watched state officials and other participants grapple with this question for several years. To help explain what we have observed, we conceptualize these participants as complex designers – actors who seek to design and redesign institutions within complex adaptive systems. We then formulate three emergent design principles that seem to guide their approach as they aim to create: flexible structures, balanced content, and adaptive management processes. In a dynamic era marked by unpredictability, division, and complex transnational challenges, we believe these concepts may prove to be increasingly relevant in global governance.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Investment Treaties: The Reform Matrix

This essay proposes a matrix for understanding the dynamics of investment treaty reform. It tracks incremental, systemic, and paradigmatic reform options as applied across procedure, substance, and form. Although stylized and thus unable to capture all the nuances of individual positions, the reform matrix creates a framework for understanding some of the main debates about investment treaty reforms and offers a template for locating and comparing the approaches of key international actors, including the United States, the European Union, and Japan, together with Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (the BRICS)

ChAFTA新制度：利用条约缔约方联合控制以保障公共福利规制

The recent FTA between China and Australia aims to protect public welfare measures through joint treaty party control. This Perspective assesses the FTA’s mechanism in the context of broader efforts to rebalance investor protection and state sovereignty, and to recalibrate interpretive authority between arbitral tribunals and treaty parties

A commognitive perspective on Grade 8 and Grade 9 learner thinking about linear equation

Concerns have been expressed that although learners may solve linear equations correctly they cannot draw on mathematically valid resources to explain their solutions or use their strategies in unfamiliar situations. This article provides a detailed qualitative analysis of the thinking of 15 Grade 8 and Grade 9 learners as they talk about their solutions to linear equations in interviews. The article stems from a study that describes whether learners use mathematically endorsable narratives to explain and justify their solutions. Sfard’s theory of commognition is used to develop a framework for analysis of their discourse. The findings show that all learners use ritualised rather than explorative discourse, characterised by applying strict rules to operations with disobjectified entities. The only mathematical objects they produce endorsed narratives about are positive integers. Thus they do not meet the relevant curriculum requirements. Nevertheless, the analytic tools – adapted from Sfard specifically for the study of linear equations – give a particularly nuanced account of differences in the learners’ ritualised discourse. For example, some learners used endorsed narratives about negative integers, algebraic terms and the structure of an equation when prompted by the interviewer. There is not sufficient evidence to suggest that any learners are in transition to explorative discourse. However, the article shows that learner discourse is a rich resource for teachers to understand the extent to which learners are thinking exploratively, and offers suggestions for how their thinking can be shifted. This is an opportunity for teacher professional development and further research