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Bilateral Investment Treaties (bilateral + investment_treaty)
Selected AbstractsDelegating Differences: Bilateral Investment Treaties and Bargaining Over Dispute Resolution ProvisionsINTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 1 2010Todd Allee Bilateral investment treaties (BITs) have become the dominant source of rules on foreign direct investment (FDI), yet these treaties vary significantly in at least one important respect: whether they allow investment disputes to be settled through the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). Through the compilation and careful coding of the text of nearly 1,500 treaties, we identify systematic variation in "legal delegation" to ICSID across BITs and explain this important variation by drawing upon a bargaining framework. Home governments prefer and typically obtain ICSID clauses in their BITs, particularly when internal forces push strongly for such provisions and when they have significantly greater bargaining power than the other signatory. Yet some home governments are less likely to insist upon ICSID clauses if they have historical or military ties with the other government. On the other hand, although host governments are often hostile toward ICSID clauses, particularly when sovereignty costs are high, they are more likely to consent to such clauses when they are heavily constrained by their dependence on the global economy. Our findings have significant implications for those interested in FDI, legalization, international institutions, and interstate bargaining. [source] Intellectual Property Rights in Bilateral Investment Treaties and Access to Medicines: The Case of Latin AmericaTHE JOURNAL OF WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, Issue 5 2006Rosa Castro Bernieri The link between intellectual property protection and access to medicines has been studied from different perspectives. After signing the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement, most developing and least developed countries agreed to protect pharmaceutical products under the patent system. Beyond the criticisms of this system as an incentive mechanism to encourage private investment in research and development, it is widely acknowledged that a balance must exist between its benefits and costs. The patent system interaction with public health policies is twofold: providing incentives to develop new medicines, on the one hand, and increasing the prices of medicines, on the other. The TRIPS Agreement, the Doha Declaration and the subsequent Decision on Implementation of Paragraph 6 of the Doha Declaration all recognized this important trade-off. Different effects prevail in each interest group or country and negotiations of international intellectual property right (IPR) standards reflect this conflict. Nevertheless, the post-TRIPS scenario is full of new bilateral and regional agreements. The old bilateral investment treaties (BITS) are evolving towards new forms of all-encompassing arrangements that include intellectual property and liberalization of trade and services, apart from the classical rules for investment protection. This trend imposes a new landscape in IPR protection: one in which the above-described balance might be inclining towards one side. This article analyzes some legal, political and economic features of this new generation of BITS in Latin America. [source] Self-Interest, Foreign Need, and Good Governance: Are Bilateral Investment Treaty Programs Similar to Aid Allocation?FOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS, Issue 3 2006ERIC NEUMAYER Bilateral investment treaties (BITs) have become the most important legal mechanism for the encouragement and governance of foreign direct investment (FDI) in developing countries. Yet practically no systematic evidence exists on what motivates capital-exporting developed countries to sign BITs earlier with some developing countries than with others, if at all. The theoretical framework from the aid allocation literature suggests that developed countries pursue a mixture of self-interest, foreign need and, possibly, good governance. We find evidence that both economic interests of developed countries' foreign investors and political interests of developed countries determine their scheduling of BITs. However, foreign need as measured by per capita income is also a factor, whereas good governance by and large does not matter. These results suggest that BIT programs can be explained using the same framework successfully applied to the allocation of aid. At the same time, self-interest seems to be substantively more important than developing country need when it comes to BITs. [source] Delegating Differences: Bilateral Investment Treaties and Bargaining Over Dispute Resolution ProvisionsINTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 1 2010Todd Allee Bilateral investment treaties (BITs) have become the dominant source of rules on foreign direct investment (FDI), yet these treaties vary significantly in at least one important respect: whether they allow investment disputes to be settled through the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). Through the compilation and careful coding of the text of nearly 1,500 treaties, we identify systematic variation in "legal delegation" to ICSID across BITs and explain this important variation by drawing upon a bargaining framework. Home governments prefer and typically obtain ICSID clauses in their BITs, particularly when internal forces push strongly for such provisions and when they have significantly greater bargaining power than the other signatory. Yet some home governments are less likely to insist upon ICSID clauses if they have historical or military ties with the other government. On the other hand, although host governments are often hostile toward ICSID clauses, particularly when sovereignty costs are high, they are more likely to consent to such clauses when they are heavily constrained by their dependence on the global economy. Our findings have significant implications for those interested in FDI, legalization, international institutions, and interstate bargaining. [source] Investment Rules and the New ConstitutionalismLAW & SOCIAL INQUIRY, Issue 3 2000David Schneiderman The new model for economic and political renovation mandates the entrenchment, beyond the reach of majoritarian control, of rules for the free movement of transnational capital. This "new constitutionalism" removes key aspects of economic life from the influence of domestic politics within nation states. A manifestation of this new orthodoxy is the network of bilateral investment treaties designed to ensure foreign investors security from "discrimination" and "expropriation," and conferring standing on investors to sue in the event that their investment interests are impaired. This paper examines the agency of the state in promoting this self-binding regime of investment rules and its potential impact on domestic constitutional regimes. Of particular concern here are constitutional arrangements that protect property, such as that recently enacted in the Republic of South Africa, that deviate from the norms expressed in the transnational investment-rules regime. [source] Follow-up: An analysis of the U.S.-Uruguay bilateral investment treaty, the new model's first applicationALTERNATIVES TO THE HIGH COST OF LITIGATION, Issue 3 2005Mark Kantor Mark Kantor, of Washington, D.C., follows up on his Alternatives' analysis last year of the new arbitration-centric U.S. draft revised model bilateral investment treaty. The first fully negotiated treaty since the model was released has been signed with Uruguay, and changes some of the model's application. [source] | |||||||||||||