This book brings together a series of contributions by international legal scholars that explore a range of subjects and themes in the field of international economic law and global economic governance through a variety of methodological and theoretical lenses. It introduces the reader to a number of different ways of constructing and approaching the study of international economic law. The book deals with a series of different theoretical agendas and perspectives ranging from the more traditional (empirical legal studies) to the more alternative (language theory) and it expands the scope of substantive discussion and thematic coverage beyond the usual suspects of international trade, international investment and international finance. While the volume still gives due recognition to the traditional theoretical project of international economic law, it invites the reader to extend the scope of disciplinary imagination to other, less commonly acknowledged questions of global economic governance such as food security, monetary unions, and international economic coercion. In addition to historically-focused and critical perspectives, the volume also includes a number of programmatic and forward-looking explorations, which makes it appealing to a broad audience with a variety of contrasting interests. Therefore, the volume is of particular interest to academics and postgraduate students in the fields of international law, international relations, international political economy, and international history.

In Cultural Heritage in International Economic Law, Valentina Vadi offers an account of how international economic law contributes to global cultural governance, analysing the promises and pitfalls of such contributions.

This book provides the first comprehensive introduction to the role of humanity in international law, offering a fresh perspective to a discussions with global implications. The 1990s and the first decade of the twenty-first century witnessed the sporadic emergence of a new vision of global law. Although the vision has taken many different forms, all instances of it have been uniform in the attempt of radically altering how we understand international law by seeking to posit the human as the primary subject of the international legal order and humanity as its main source of legitimacy. Together, this book calls these instances “the law of humanity project”. In so doing, it also paints a picture of and critically assesses a particular moment in the history of international law – a moment which may have already come to a sudden end as a consequence of the current populist backlash in world politics, but during which it seemed inevitable that the law of humanity vision would come to play an increasingly important role in world affairs.

This book develops a conceptual framework that captures not only the tensions between constitutional values that are common to liberal democracies – human rights, democracy, and the rule of law – and the investment treaty regime, but also the potential for co-existence and complementarity.

These texts on the legitimacy of international courts were framed as a direct reaction to arguments put forward in the book "In Whose Name?" by Armin von Bogdandy und Ingo Venzke. The subjects ranged from a comparison between international organizations and international courts and how they can contribute to democratize international law to assessing the democratic legitimacy of international human rights courts. Therefore the collection is dealing with both theoretical and practical questions regarding the legitimacy of international courts and how such problems relate to fundamental problems of our times.

This monograph offers a detailed and distinctive analysis of corporate nationality under international investment law, covering the ICSID Convention and the investment treaty framework. It takes the reader back to the basics, threading through the concepts of jurisdiction, nationality, and corporate personality to give a clear context to the discussion of corporate nationality under international investment law, at a time when international investment is dominated by multinational business enterprises operating in a globalised economy. The book examines different understandings of corporate personality and nationality under a selection of jurisdictions and public international law. It also offers an in-depth analysis of approaches found in ICSID arbitral awards and in investment treaty practice, distilling the problematic areas and discussing the impacts of the areas of concern. It evaluates the techniques developed to address problems and puts forward suggestions for effective and balanced solutions to the questions of corporate nationality and personal scope of investment protection.

This book is the first book-length analysis of investor accountability under general and customary international law, international human rights law, international environmental law, international humanitarian law, as well as international investment law. International investment law is currently facing growing criticisms for its failure to address corruption, abuse, environmental damage, and other forms of investor misconduct. Reform initiatives range from the rejection of international law as a governing regime for investors, to the dramatic overhaul of investment treaties that supposedly enable investor overprotection, to the creation of a multilateral international instrument that would enable the litigation of claims against errant businesses before an international tribunal. Whether these initiatives succeed in disciplining investors remains to be seen. What these initiatives undeniably show however, is that change is warranted to counteract this lopsided investors' international law. Each chapter in the book addresses a different and underexplored dimension of investor accountability, thus offering a novel and consolidated study of international law. The book will be of immense assistance to legal practitioners, academics and policy makers involved in the design, drafting, application and reform of various international instruments addressing investor accountability.