Nondiscrimination in Trade and Investment Treaties: Worlds Apart or Two Sides of the Same Coin?

For global business, international trade and investment are bound at the hip. When businesses trade internationally, goods or services cross borders; when they invest, it is capital and other factors of production that do so. Companies trade to supply their foreign investments; they invest to facilitate and diversify their trade. In contrast, international law addresses trade and investment separately and regulates them in ways that are dramatically different. First, trade has been governed multilaterally since 1947 through what today is the World Trade Organization (WTO), whereas close to 2,600 separate bilateral investment treaties (BITs), which mushroomed only in the 1980s and 1990s, now regulate foreign direct investment (FDI). Second, hundreds of increasingly sophisticated WTO rules discipline trade, whereas a mere handful of principles cover investment—many of which derive from customary international law. Third, trade agreements are enforced exclusively between states, with reciprocal trade sanctions as the remedy of last resort; under investment treaties, private companies have standing to claim monetary damages from host country governments.</jats:p

The politics of treaty interpretation : variations and explanations across international tribunals

Interdisciplinary Perspectives on International Law and International Relations: The State of the Art brings together the most influential contemporary writers in the fields of international law and international relations to take stock of what we know about the making, interpretation and enforcement of international law. The contributions to this volume critically explore what recent interdisciplinary work reveals about the design and workings of international institutions, the various roles played by international and domestic courts, and the factors that enhance compliance with international law. The volume also explores how interdisciplinary work has advanced theoretical understandings of the causes and consequences of the increased legalization of international affairs