International Law - Dissertation Example

esolution is usually included in bilateral international treaties (BITs) which are intended to bind treaty states to commitments for protecting investors and their investments against hostile host state conduct in transactions under foreign direct investment (FDI).7 The proposed dissertation will analyse arbitral awards and their underlying decisions relative to investor/state arbitration with a view to identifying and analysing contributions to customary international law and the consequences for resolving investor/state disputes.

In particular, the proposed dissertation evaluates the extent to which international commercial arbitration and more especially, ISA, has established or can satisfactorily establish the necessary legal protections for encouraging and facilitating FDIs. The proposed dissertation will argue that although there is no multilateral international legal instrument regulating FDIs and investor-state relations, international customary law and the principle of fair and equitable treatment included in BITs and emerging from investor/state arbitration has contributed to a sufficiently coherent body of law so that investors are accorded the protection necessary for investing abroad.

It will be argued that although international arbitration in general including ISA is not regulated by a centralized forum by which binding precedents may be created, the cumulative effect of BITs and ISAs applying and interpreting BITs have resulted in a customs, norms and rules that have established a coherent body of law applicable to standards of treatment expected of host states.8 It will also be argued, however, that despite the emerging coherent body of law, there are challenges to overcome.

For example, the different language used in BITs has resulted in arbitrators rending inconsistent or unclear decisions in their interpretation of protective clauses in BITs.9 Outline: In order to support the hypothesis that ISA or international commercial arbitration has contributed to a coherent body of law for promulgating FDIs, the proposed dissertation will be presented as follows: Part I: Introduction. The introduction establishes that over the last 20 years or so, there have been two interesting developments in international commercial transactions: an increase in BITs10 and a decrease in investor/state arbitration.

11 The introduction then makes an undertaking that the dissertation will establish that the link between these developments is ISA in that BITs provide for arbitration of investor/state disputes and interpret and apply the level of protection provided for in BITs. Part II: This part of the dissertation