International Law and Foreign Direct Investment provides an overview of the law of foreign direct investments, incorporating a thorough exposition of the legal principles that are likely to affect a commercial investment in a foreign country. It analyzes the manner in which the principles have been interpreted and applied by international courts, domestic courts, and arbitral tribunals. The book should be of interest to both practitioners and scholarly lawyers.

Two of the distinguishing features of the law on foreign direct investment (FDI) are its complexity and its creativity. The law on FDI embraces the domestic rules and regulations dealing with foreign controlled businesses as well as the numerous bilateral and multilateral legal instruments. It is influenced by awards of international arbitration tribunals as well as numerous other sources. Consequently, it is always changing. The various actors involved, including transnational corporations, local companies, investment promotion agencies, and multilateral donors, as well as lawyers advising foreign investors or their local counterparts and financial intermediaries, each follow their own interests. By its nature, FDI involves the interaction, and sometimes the clash, between different legal concepts of the participants and regulators. Counsels to local governments and domestic partners in a joint venture with foreign companies may not always be accustomed to legal documentation in an Anglo-American or continental European style. As a result, dealing with FDI requires an ongoing learning process for all who wish to understand and successfully manage foreign investment transactions. All this elucidates the need for a multi-author book which covers various areas of the law on FDI from different perspectives. The authors of this book are all concerned with FDI as either academics or practicioners and come from a variety of legal, academic and geographical backgrounds. The book consists of three parts: first, a general introduction on FDI by Dr. Escher; next, an analysis on the emerging international law on FDI and related areas; and finally, an overview of FDI law in a variety of countries in Asia, Africa, Latin-America, and Europe.

Over the past twenty years, foreign direct investments have spurred widespread liberalization of the foreign direct investment (FDI) regulatory framework. By opening up to foreign investors and encouraging FDI, which could result in increased capital and market access, many countries have improved the operational conditions for foreign affiliates and strengthened standards of treatment and protection. By assuring investors that their investment will be legally protected with closed bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and double taxation treaties (DTTs), this in turn creates greater interest in FDI.

The effect on developing countries of the arrival of foreign direct investment (FDI) has been a subject of controversy for decades in the development community. The debate over the relationship between FDI in developing countries and the progress of these countries towards human development is an ongoing and often heated one. Adopting an interdisciplinary perspective combining insights from international investment law, human rights law and economics, this book offers an original contribution to the debate. It explores how improvements ...

There are three legal frameworks applicable to international investments: the laws of the host state and the investor's country, the contract between the host state and the investor, and the rules of international investment law. This book assesses how these three bodies of law interact in investment agreements and dispute arbitration.

Companies engaged in FDI or financial services will appreciate the detailed analysis of issues raised by this new EU policy instrument. This book is supposed to improve the practitioners? understanding of the EU regulatory layer now coming on top of FDI screening at the Member State level. Practitioners active in competition law, particularly mergers and acquisitions, will welcome this clear commentary and analysis of a crucial component of EU policy in the related areas of trade and investment, and policymakers will be encouraged to consider whether further regulatory changes are called for.

This book is a thought-provoking and authoritative text on this fast moving field of international law.

Foreign investments in the energy sector raise formidable legal questions, often requiring a delicate balance between private and public interests of the various stakeholders. Foreign Investment in the Energy Sector: Balancing Private and Public Interests opens with a discussion of the legal protection of foreign investment in the main segments of the energy sector (namely oil, gas, mining and hydroelectric industry), both in substantive and procedural terms. This second part of the book focuses on the Energy Charter Treaty, by far the most important international legal instrument in the energy sector, and its future after the decision of the Russian Federation not to ratify it. In its third part, the book examines four critical areas that are often negatively concerned by economic activities by multinational in the energy sector, namely compliance with safety and labour standards, protection of the environment, respect of indigenous peoples rights, and protection of public health. Foreign Investment in the Energy Sector: Balancing Private and Public Interests, a comprehensive collection of essays from experts and practitioners, offers an important new resource to the field.

The Chinese market is appealing, but its legal environment is very complicated and full of nooses that await investors. This book intends to provide an in-depth analysis of the legal environment and its hidden risks for foreign investment. It covers two basic investment modes which are green-field and M and A, and almost all concrete legal issues including political risk, tax, land use rights, labor etc. Among them, three chapters focus on the legal system and its risks for the foreign investment in three special industries as private education, water market and insurance. The detailed analysis is based on the newest laws and regulations.

Increasingly, transnational corporations, developed countries and private actors are broadening the boundaries of their investments into new territories, in search of a higher return on capital. This growth in direct foreign investment involves serious concerns for both the investor and host state. Various exponents of international civil society and non-governmental organisations persuasively claim that such growth in foreign investments constitutes potential and serious hazards both to the environment and the fundamental rights and freedoms of local populations. This book explores from an international law perspective the complex relationship between foreign investments and common concerns, i.e. values that do not coincide, or do not necessarily coincide, with the interests of the investor and of the host state. It pays particular attention to the role of the main international development banks in reconciling the needs of foreign investors with the protection of common concerns, such as the environment, human rights and labour rights. Among its collection of essays, the volume asks how much "regulatory space" investment law leaves; whether international investment law is an effective means of balancing contrasting interests, and whether investment arbitration currently constitutes a mechanism of global governance. In collecting the outlooks of various experts in human rights, environmental and international economic law, this book breaks new ground in exploring how attention to its legal aspects may help in navigating the relationship between foreign investment and common concerns. In doing so, the book provides valuable insights into the substantive issues and institutional aspects of international investment law.