Zampetti, Americo Beviglia; Sauve, Pierre --- "International investment" [2007] ELECD 97; in Guzman, T. Andrew; Sykes, O. Alan (eds), "Research Handbook in International Economic Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007)

Book Title: Research Handbook in International Economic Law

Editor(s): Guzman, T. Andrew; Sykes, O. Alan

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781843766742

Section: Chapter 6

Section Title: International investment

Author(s): Zampetti, Americo Beviglia; Sauve, Pierre

Number of pages: 60

Extract:

6. International investment
Americo Beviglia Zampetti and Pierre Sauvé1



Introduction
International rules related to investment issues have a long history. They are
multifaceted and span the bilateral, regional and multilateral levels.2 They can
take the form of binding or voluntary instruments setting out different types of
commitments, which often overlap.3 Providing a concise but reasonably
comprehensive summary account of the international legal framework for
foreign investment is thus a difficult task, because there are so many interna-
tional rules that have a clear impact on foreign investment, spanning such
fields as taxation, intellectual property, trade in services, antitrust, labour rela-
tions and corporate social responsibility. The approach followed in this chap-
ter is to describe the main `substantive' rules of a binding nature that set out
the basic international legal framework governing the foreign investment rela-
tionship, admittedly a subjective choice, dividing such rules between bilateral,
regional and multilateral rules. Only brief reference will be made to the large
array of dispute settlement rules, ranging from the arbitral rules established by
private institutions, such as the International Chamber of Commerce, to


1 The views expressed are strictly personal . The authors are grateful to Mark
Koulen, Michael Gestrin, Martin Molinuevo, Elisabeth Tuerk and Christopher Wilkie
for helpful comments and discussions on the issues taken up in this chapter.
2 The texts of a large number of investment instruments are collected in the
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), International
Investment Instruments: A Compendium, various years (New ...