Contemporary Dilemmas of International Investment Law: From the Perspective of Settlement of International Investment Disputes

Abstract

The current state of international investment law consists of thousands of International Investment Agreements (IIAs) and Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanisms that create safeguards in international investment law and provide foreign investors with the means to mitigate the political risks they face in host countries. However, the number of effective international investment treaties is generally decreasing, and new investment treaties also exclude investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms. Based on past litigation, it is easy to see that the majority of investors who have successfully initiated litigation against host States have come from developed countries. Litigation against the host State by investors from the global South has been relatively few and far between, and has mostly been dismissed, and even when it has been successfully filed, it has not been successful. As a result, the dispute settlement mechanism is not inherently fair. It can be said that this mechanism is a symbol of protectionism in the post-colonial era, which is no longer suitable for the current time. This paper addresses these issues by providing a comprehensive analysis of the current state of development of international investment treaties and the current state of investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms.