Examining the Institutional Design of International Investment Law

Abstract The Columbia Program on International Investment symposium on the law of international investment took place at a critical moment in the development of international rules relating to foreign direct investment (FDI). The past 20 years have seen a dramatic rise not only in FDI flows to developing countries, but also in the number of bilateral and regional agreements granting, among other things, foreign investors the right to sue countries hosting their investment where they fail to honor substantive commitments contained in those agreements. Together, these two trends have led to an exponential rise in investor-State litigation, with at least 219 treaty arbitrations brought between 1987 and 2005, two-thirds of which have been initiated in the past three years, and virtually all of them initiated by firms.