A Noble Effort or Window Dressing? Computational Analysis of Human Rights-Related Investor Obligations in International Investment Agreements

Abstract

International investment law may be the most criticised front of contemporary international economic law. One of the main points of criticism stresses its substantively asymmetrical structure, which creates an imbalance between the respective rights and obligations of foreign investors and all other stakeholders in international investment relations such as home and host states, local communities and NGOs. One of the proposals to address this issue is to include more human rights-related obligations on investors in investment agreements, and, increasingly, we see such provisions in newly concluded agreements. Yet our understanding of these provisions is often limited to certain agreements or to specific subjects, preventing us from analysing their overall balancing promise more accurately. Through automated textual analysis and qualitative methods, this study aims to offer a taxonomy for the human rights-related obligations on investors found in investment agreements and to provide a more comprehensive and nuanced picture of these obligations. It demonstrates that despite the overall increase in the number of such provisions, they often fail to introduce more progressive obligations, contain vague terminology and are not directly addressed to investors. Consequently, these provisions become highly difficult to enforce on investors.