Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Editors' preface and acknowledgements
- Table of cases
- Table of Treaties
- Part I Introduction
- Part II Shifts in fundamental character
- 2 Conflict and conflicts in investment treaty arbitration: Ethical standards for counsel
- 3 Recent developments in the approach to identifying an ‘investment’ pursuant to Article 25(1) of the ICSID Convention
- 4 Investment treaty interpretation and customary investment law: Preliminary remarks
- 5 The public–private dualities of international investment law and arbitration
- 6 Outline of a normative framework for evaluating interpretations of investment treaty protections
- 7 Investment treaty arbitration as global administrative law: What this might mean in practice
- Part III Actors in international investment law
- Part IV The new significance of procedure
- Part V Engagement with cross-cutting issues
- Part VI Conclusions
- Index
- References
4 - Investment treaty interpretation and customary investment law: Preliminary remarks
from Part II - Shifts in fundamental character
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Editors' preface and acknowledgements
- Table of cases
- Table of Treaties
- Part I Introduction
- Part II Shifts in fundamental character
- 2 Conflict and conflicts in investment treaty arbitration: Ethical standards for counsel
- 3 Recent developments in the approach to identifying an ‘investment’ pursuant to Article 25(1) of the ICSID Convention
- 4 Investment treaty interpretation and customary investment law: Preliminary remarks
- 5 The public–private dualities of international investment law and arbitration
- 6 Outline of a normative framework for evaluating interpretations of investment treaty protections
- 7 Investment treaty arbitration as global administrative law: What this might mean in practice
- Part III Actors in international investment law
- Part IV The new significance of procedure
- Part V Engagement with cross-cutting issues
- Part VI Conclusions
- Index
- References
Summary
Introduction
The historical development of investment protection law has resulted in a somewhat peculiar interplay of different treaty and customary law strata. As has been suggested elsewhere:
the shift has been away from vague and crude substantive rules (set out in customary law, general principles and evocations of equity) discretionarily enforced by the home State, and in the direction of ‘treatified’ law of investment protection, implemented by means of investor–State arbitration . . . The results of the more recent efforts of [treaty] law-making sometimes accept and incorporate the classic [customary] rules; sometimes clarify the classic ambiguities or replace the unsatisfactory solutions; sometimes permit different approaches in parallel; and quite often maintain constructive ambiguity regarding the precise relationship between different rules.
Particularly during the last decade, States, investment treaty tribunals and legal writers have grappled with perhaps not entirely foreseen theoretical and practical implications of the relationship between investment rules set out in treaty and customary law. Different facets of the relationship raise different legal questions, ranging from the more traditional inquiries about lawmaking (and the contribution of treaties to custom) to perspectives of conflict (and the exclusion of custom by treaties) and interpretation (of treaties by reference to custom). This chapter engages in the latter exercise, relying on the practice and case law of the last decade to suggest an approach that an interpreter of an investment treaty should take regarding customary investment protection law.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Evolution in Investment Treaty Law and Arbitration , pp. 65 - 96Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011
References
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