* [“Status of Investment Treaties” was placed in this section, even though U.S. bilateral investment treaties were included, because over 90 percent of the treaties were treaties to which the United States was not a party.

[Reproduced from the text provided to International Legal Materialsby Paul Peters. The last information on the status of bilateral and multilateral investment treaties (BITs and MITs) appeared at 34 I.L.M. 1151 (1995) where reference was made to previous listings. The present updating lists all “recent” treaties on record, i.e., those which were signed or brought into force after January 1, 1990, a total of 651 BITs and three MITs. Together with BITs and MITs in earlier lists, this brings the total number of these treaties on record to 1010 BITs and eight MITs. Where known, the date of entry into force is given; sometimes the approximate date is indicated by “c” (for circa). If information is available that a treaty was not yet in force at a given date, that is indicated by “nif” (not in force) followed by that date. In many cases it is difficult to ascertain whether a treaty is in force. There are 125 countries (including countries which no longer exist, such as USSR, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia) which are (or were) party to the recent BITs here listed. A further 24 countries are signatories of earlier BITs, leaving few countries with no BITs. These countries include Botswana, Guatemala, Ireland, Mozambique, Myamnar, Surinam and some mini-States. The symbol following the date of signature indicates that the treaty is being applied provisionally. The symbol indicates that the text of the treaty appeared in I.L.M..