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Muchlinski, Peter --- "Holistic Approaches to Development and International Investment Law: The Role of International Investment Agreements" [2010] ELECD 633; in Faundez, Julio; Tan, Celine (eds), "International Economic Law, Globalization and Developing Countries" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: International Economic Law, Globalization and Developing Countries

Editor(s): Faundez, Julio; Tan, Celine

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848441132

Section: Chapter 9

Section Title: Holistic Approaches to Development and International Investment Law: The Role of International Investment Agreements

Author(s): Muchlinski, Peter

Number of pages: 25

Extract:

9. Holistic approaches to development
and international investment law:
the role of international investment
agreements
Peter Muchlinski*

1. INTRODUCTION

This chapter discusses the contribution made by `international investment
law' to the process of economic and social development in developing
countries. This area is based on the myriad of international investment
agreements (IIAs), especially bilateral investment treaties (BITs), which
have existed in their broad current form for at least 50 years. In that time
they have been seen as vehicles for development so far as they provide for
improvements in the regulatory environment that could, in turn, facilitate
the attraction of new foreign investment. Such agreements are said to secure
the legitimate expectations of investors for a stable, transparent and predict-
able investment environment. More recently, IIAs have been subjected to
extensive interpretation in arbitral awards as a result of the sharp increase
in investor­state disputes under such treaties in the first years of the twenty-
first century (see UNCTAD, 2009b). This has led to the development of a
new `international investment law'.1 Concerns have been expressed as to the
adverse effects of such agreements, and how they have been interpreted, on



* Professor of International Commercial Law, School of Law, School of
Oriental and African Studies, London, UK.
1 This has led to the production of many recent works on international invest-

ment law. Prior to 2007 there was in effect only one major text dedicated to this
subject, Sornarajah (2004) which first came out in 1994, and a ...