9781316512791


Parution : 04/2023
Editeur : Cambridge University Press
ISBN : 978-1-3165-1279-1
Site de l'éditeur

National Governance and Investment Treaties

Between Constraint and Empowerment

Josef Ostřanský, Facundo Pérez Aznar

Présentation de l'éditeur

Much of the existing accounts assume that investment treaties affect national governance. However, how exactly this happens has been subject to little analysis. Conventional accounts presume that these treaties improve national governance, leading to good governance and the rule of law for all. Critical accounts charge that investment treaties unduly empower foreign investors and cause a regulatory chill. On both accounts, investment treaties are expected to empower and constrain. Comparing extended case studies of Argentina, the Czech Republic, India and Mexico, this book shows how investment treaties influence national governance ideologically, institutionally, and socially. We show how the overarching role of IIAs in national governance – to cultivate constraining discipline in public administration – is realised and who gets empowered and marginalised in the process. The book's findings will serve in the debates about alternative ways of economic governance and help explain the investment treaty regime's significant resistance to change.

Josef Ostřanský has worked as lecturer and research fellow at various universities in Europe, Australia and Latin America, and has published extensively on international investment law. He has worked as a consultant on international economic law with international organisations. In 2021, he won the CIBEL Global Young Scholar Network Prize.

Facundo Pérez Aznar is Senior Researcher at the Geneva Center for International Dispute Settlement and Associate Professor of International Economic Law at the University of Buenos Aires. He acted as counsel in numerous in international investment disputes. His has published extensively on different aspects of international economic law and dispute settlement.

Cambridge Studies in International and Comparative Law , 224 pages.  £ 95.00