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The phenomena of arbitral forum shopping to resolve a commercial investment dispute is still under development and more complicated in many states. However, for Pakistan, it seems in an evolutionary phase, where the country is struggling hard to adopt the best practice of dispute resolution through forum shopping clauses. This struggle is even more inflated with huge Chinese investment through China Pakistan economic corridor (CPEC) projects in Pakistan, which come alongside with commercial investment disputes. For this purpose, the current treaty or contract-based system between China and Pakistan and litigation based domestic civil court structure look obsolete, hence, appear to require reinstatement of forum shopping clauses under concerned treaties or contracts for CPEC investment-related issues.

The authors choose a legal research method. The research design is a comparative analysis between CPEC contracts and dispute resolution mechanism between China and Pakistan and also the domestic civil court’s litigation system. This analysis selected by the authors due to inefficient bilateral investment arrangements and efficient resolution of future commercial disputes in CPEC. While the international arbitration system is included in the assessment were particular in the time and space context. The comparison comprises on dispute resolution clauses in free trade agreement (FTA) and bilateral investment treaties (BIT) between China and Pakistan and the system of resolving disputes by CPEC clauses.

The authors finds that in the absence of CPEC forum shopping clause under dispute resolution system, Pakistan is highly at risk to lose foreign investors, and therefore, set back the goal of long term economic sustainability in the region. However, China has already made its investment policies safer with establishing three international commercial courts (also referred to as Belt and Road courts), one in Xi’an for the land-based Silk Road Economic Belt, one in Shenzhen for the Maritime Silk Road and one in Beijing that will serve as the headquarters. These courts will be offering litigation, arbitration and mediation services. According to one view, China aims to have all belt and road initiative (BRI) disputes resolved by these courts. This makes Pakistan position more awkward and needs proactive measures, as CPEC investment is based on Pakistan foreign direct investment policies and legal structure. Therefore, it will be complicated and less favourable for Pakistan to deal with such cases under Chinese Courts.

The paper’s primary contribution is finding that comprehensive analysis of alternative dispute resolution mechanism between China and Pakistan over CPEC investment is inevitable. A socio-legal research combine with an examination of Singapore International Commercial Court functions and mechanism and CPEC plans further contributes to ascertain the best model of the settlement of commercial disputes under investments in Pakistan. This research paper anticipates future economic and legal problems, which Pakistan may encounter.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the remedies available under Iranian investment treaties for settlement of investment disputes. This includes the obligation of the Iranian Government to provide foreign investors access to international arbitration. The sensitivity of the controversial Iranian nuclear program and the imposition of economic and financial sanctions on Iran will lead to the termination of many contracts between companies from Europe and the West and Iran, therefore, a viable solution must exist to address the rights and remedies of foreign investors. This article aims to provide an insight into Iranian treaties.

The main method was a survey of different treaties signed by Iran.

The discussion revealed that there are currently more than 50 treaties signed and ratified by Iran which provide arbitration as a dispute resolution forum. There are many treaties between the member countries of the European Union which make it important for the research. Iranian treaties guarantee international law remedies to foreign companies with investment in Iran by allowing them to seek redress in an international forum.

Iran has not signed the ICS1D Convention, meaning that the arbitration proceedings will be subject to ad hoc arbitration rules of UNCITRAL. Furthermore, ICSID rules on enforcement of the award do not apply. Therefore, the winning party must go through the Iranian courts to enforce its awards.

The value of the paper is to government organization, international institutions and multinational companies with substantial economic interest in Iranian energy and natural resources. For the first time, the topic has been covered in a research paper. There are no articles in Iranian bilateral investment treaties (BITs) addressing dispute resolution through arbitration. This is the first piece of work that actually conducted a thorough analysis of Iranian BITs.

The study aims to focus on the effectiveness of international investment agreements (IIAs) in helping or facilitating the influx of foreign direct investment (FDI) to host developing countries.

To critically examine the topic, the black letter approach and the socio-legal analysis are adopted. The study has analysed how Mauritius, being a developing country, is responding to FDI needs from various bilateral and multilateral investment treaties concluded, and the research includes the analysis of official data publicly made available by the World Trade Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, International Monetary Fund and Mauritius governmental agencies’ reports.

From the methodologies used, it was found that other than IIAs, there are various key determinants which foreign investors consider prior to injecting their capital in developing countries in terms of environmental, social and cultural factors. Also, there are some inherent loopholes mostly in terms of monitoring, in the way IIAs are concluded and are applied in practice by and amongst signatory states.

This research is amongst the first studies to conclude the link between IIAs and FDI flows in developing countries with a particular focus on Mauritius. Additionally, an overwhelming number of studies have emphasised on the efforts to boost FDI, which are inspired mostly by action plans of developed nations, but this research will analyse the policy options adopted by China, being itself a developing country, and the extent to which such recommendations are applicable in the context of Mauritius will also be considered.

The aim of this paper first is to go beyond the static effects of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and empirically estimate the marginal effects of the stock of BITs on foreign direct investment flows.

These statistical models use a gravity equation.

This paper finds that BITs is subject to diminishing returns measured in terms of FDI flows. Diminishing returns are more pronounced among country-pairs that have not signed BITs but have their own BIT network than among country-pairs with their own BITs.

The subsidiary finding is that a measure of a country’s BIT network characteristic, capturing conditions favorable for a mix of horizontally and vertically integrated activities, may be the limiting force underlying the diminishing returns of the stock of BITs.

For a given country’s BIT network, a multinational enterprise finds more value in investing where a bilateral treaty is in place. This suggests either stronger property-rights protection or greater latitude to use the host country as an export platform.

International investment law has become a powerful tool of global economic governance. With its global network of international investment treaties and effective arbitration mechanism, it has made an extraordinary leap from a relatively niche and underrated area of international law to one of the most prominent legal regimes. This paper aims to illustrate how the evolutionary trajectories of globalization and international investment law have been intertwined.

This paper follows the historical unfolding of international investment law against the background of the globalization phenomenon, tracing the history of globalization processes since the expansion of European interests and export of capital and the onset of the international investment legal framework.

The evolution of globalization and international investment law has always been intertwined and co-dependent, experiencing similar phases of acceleration, transformation, adjustment and progress. This paper finds that the current era of globalization is characterized by an increasing complexity and diversity of transnational interests and global connections; this is also true for international investment law, which is undergoing changes aimed at including wider contexts and interests in international investment relations.

The analysis contributes to a more holistic understanding of the interdependence of these two phenomena, helping to explain how international investment law has become such a powerful, globally recognized and applied legal regime.

This chapter seeks to reveal what are the implications of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) debate on international investment law by focusing on the specific example of public health. The right to health is one of the human rights secured in international law and in the national legislation of a majority of States. This chapter will provide examples of investment cases concerning tobacco control measures, imposed by the Host States for the purpose of improving public health, though challenged by the tobacco companies under International Investment Agreements (IIAs) in investment tribunals. These specific examples cast rather general questions regarding the legal framework of international investment framework and its role in providing sufficient policy space for Host States to implement the public policies and to ensure that foreign companies adhere to the CSR standards.

In order to investigate what are the implications of the CSR debate on international investment law on the example of tobacco industry, the author performs a literature review and analyze two tobacco disputes and its possible implication on the public health debate and protection of foreign investors.

This case study illustrates the complex paradigm that interlink economic and human rights obligations of States on one side of the spectrum and property rights and social responsibilities of tobacco companies on the other side.

This chapter addresses a very topical and pertinent issue in public international law, namely: the role of public interest norms in the regime of foreign direct investment.

This article aims to examine the sustainability of European and SADC states' practice of agreeing bilateral investment agreements (BITs) for the promotion and protection of foreign investments in light of the latter's recent inauguration of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) as a basic norm of regional customary international law and strategy for countering the social and economic legacy of apartheid rule on their territories for over half a century.

The approach taken is textual analysis and deconstruction of emergent SADC BEE legislation, substantive BIT legislation provisions, dispute settlement mechanisms and emergent jurisprudence on the tensions between BEE policy and BIT obligations.

The strong elements of exclusivity between European/SADC BIT dispute settlement mechanisms on the one hand, and the “ouster clauses” of SADC BEE legislation and regulations on the other, are mutually incompatible. This incompatibility threatens the sustainability of the EU/SADC states' BIT dynamic for the promotion and protection of foreign direct investments (FDIs).

Demonstration of BEE as SADC's emergent basic norm of social reconstruction for countering the social and economic legacy of apartheid rule in affected states and implications of that for EU/SADC policy on the promotion and protection of FDIs.

Given the inconclusive evidence in the literature on the impact of Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) flows, as well as dearth of literature on this subject matter as regards West Africa and the European Union (EU), the purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which BITs and preferential trade and investment agreements (PTIAs) triggered foreign investment flows particularly between the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) countries and the EU.

Trend analysis was used to trace the link between FDI and BITs, while panel regression models were used to investigate the impact of BITs on FDI during 1980‐2010.

Econometric results indicate that, as in most previous studies, BITs have strong positive impact on FDI in West Africa, with this impact significant at a higher level (1 per cent) for FDI flow than stock (5 per cent). The impact of BITs on FDI is significant even with the state of internal factors (such as capital account liberalisation, trade openness, high inflation rate and poor governance) in West African countries. The findings suggest that in the absence of BITs, West African countries would have suffered adversely from poor FDI inflows given their poor macroeconomic stability and governance. On the contrary, the PTIAs did not have significant impact on both FDI flows and stock. The results also show that FDI inflow to West Africa is both market and resources seeking.

Sensitivity analysis may not have been sufficient. For instance, not tested was the impact of the signalling effect of BIT, as well as other vertical FDI such as those from the USA.

The implication of the findings is that West Africa countries need to design policies and programmes that will enable them to maximise the technological spill‐over from FDI in order not to be perpetual suppliers of primary products and purchasers of manufactured goods. Further, they have to maintain macroeconomic stability and good governance. They need to understand the type of provisions in the BITs that constituent states signed and compare with the provisions of the PTIAs, with a view to discerning what is responsible for the superior response of FDI to BITs.

Given the absence of literature on the impact of BITs on FDI flows between West Africa and EU, it becomes imperative to investigate this issue with a view to motivating the investment component of the EPA, as investment is one of the Singapore issues that were removed from WTO's Doha Round.

This paper aims to indicate that the foreign investment system in Jordan includes many provisions that create an appropriate environment for encouraging foreign investments and grant a distinctive treatment for the foreign investor that allows them the status equal to the national investor.

This study deals with the protection provided by the Jordan Government for foreign investments to attract foreign investment by studying the guarantees given by Jordan including many legal principles that encourage investment. The legal guarantees for the foreign investor enhance the confidence of the foreign investor in the host country.

The system provides a lot of guarantees with respect to non-commercial risks to which the foreign investor may be exposed.

The paper also clarifies that the role played by bilateral agreements in the field of investments, as these agreements give foreign investments a measure of protection through the guarantees and they are considered as incentives for the investor.

This article aims to deal with international investment disputes, with a focus on the nature of the law applicable to the merits of such disputes.

The procedure for determining the law applicable in investment disputes, the phases of determination and the impact thereof on the applicable law were analyzed. The diagonality of the disputes and its impact on the law applicable to the merits from the perspective of the interaction between national and international law were also analyzed. Further, the authors focused on the nature of the host state's breach of obligations towards the investor anchored in the investment treaty, and the effect thereof on the law applicable to the merits. In this respect, the notion of the investment itself was analyzed according to the relevant BITs and MITs. Finally, the authors analyzed the applicability of the Ordre Public concept to investment disputes.

The study provided practical demonstrations and examples of choice of law and application issues as resolved by the tribunals established under the ICSID.

The article deals mainly with the ICSID proceedings. Another should be also analyzed.

The paper provides a new insight into issues of the law applicable to investment disputes by analyzing this problematic in relation to all stages of investment arbitration proceedings. Particularly it took an innovative approach in shedding light on and analyzing the applicability of the Ordre Public concept in relation to investment protection, especially in relation to Article 52 of the ICSID Convention, and the recognition and enforcement proceedings of arbitral awards issued in the course of investment arbitration.