This book critically analyses the origins, the creation, and the evolution of an international law on investment contract protection.

This book analyzes the tension between the host state’s commitment to provide regulatory stability for foreign investors – which is a tool for attracting FDI and generating economic growth – and its evolving non-economic commitments towards its citizens with regard to environmental protection and social welfare. The main thesis is that the ‘stabilization clause/regulatory power antinomy,’ as it appears in many cases, contradicts the content and rationale of sustainable development, a concept that is increasingly prevalent in national and international law and which aims at the integration and balancing of economic, environmental, and social development. To reconcile this antinomy at the decision-making and dispute settlement levels, the book employs a ‘constructive sustainable development approach,’ which is based on the integration and reconciliation imperatives of the concept of sustainable development as well as on the application of principles of law such as non-discrimination, public purpose, due process, proportionality, and more generally, good governance and rule of law. It subsequently re-conceptualizes stabilization clauses in terms of their design (ex-ante) and interpretation (ex-post), yielding stability to the benefit of foreign investors, while also mitigating their negative effects on the host state’s power to regulate.

This book outlines the protection standards typically contained in international investment agreements as they are actually applied and interpreted by investment tribunals. It thus provides a basis for analysis, criticism, and stocktaking of the existing system of investment arbitration. It covers all main protection standards, such as expropriation, fair and equitable treatment, full protection and security, the non-discrimination standards of national treatment and MFN, the prohibition of unreasonable and discriminatory measures, umbrella clauses and transfer guarantees. These standards are covered in separate chapters providing an overview of textual variations, explaining the origin of the standards and analysing the main conceptual issues as developed by investment tribunals. Relevant cases with quotations that illustrate how tribunals have relied upon the standards are presented in depth. An extensive bibliography guides the reader to more specific aspects of each investment standard permitting the book's use as a commentary of the main investment protection standards.

In the wake of the adoption by the International Law Commission of a complete set of articles on state responsibility in international law in 2001, this collection assembles a number of essays tracing key debates which have marked the evolution of this field over the last fifty years. These include explorations of the general theory of state responsibility (link between ’primary’ and ’secondary’ rules, the place of due diligence, the link between liability and wrongfulness), the consequences of an internationally wrongful act (nature of remedies, suitability of countermeasures, third states and the shift from bilateralism to community interests in the law of state responsibility), the debate over criminalizing state responsibility, and the continuing relevance of the law of injuries to aliens. The collection also contains a series of essays offering critical perspectives on state responsibility, including feminist and developing world perspectives. It is completed by an extensive and up-to-date bibliography.

Explores the political context of the rapid changes in the international law on foreign investment made through investment arbitration.

"As the book clearly explains, there are situations in which questions of contract law need to be examined by investment tribunals - mainly as preliminary or incidental questions, to determine issues such as contract liability or breach of contract, that in turn are assumed as a basis for the issues of investment law in dispute"--

Often derided for its asymmetry, this book shows how investors can be held to account in international investment law.