The Effects Of Armed Conflict On Investment Treaties

This book analyses the multi-faceted impact armed conflict has on investment treaties. Refuting the common association of the outbreak of hostilities with the termination or suspension of treaties, it not only makes a case for the continuity of investment treaties. The book argues that the impact of armed conflict on such agreements goes far beyond these questions: Changed factual circumstances and public interests as well as international humanitarian law heavily influence the application and interpretation of investment protection standards. The book argues that investment treaties can and must channel these effects to remain effective during armed conflict and strike a fair balance between investor and public interests. It shows ways in which contextual and systemic interpretation, respect for reasonable state action, and careful treaty design can ensure that investment treaties continue to fulfil their purpose of strengthening compliance with legal rules also in times of armed conflict.

Foreign investors often sustain injuries during violent situations, such as riots, revolutions, civil wars, and international armed conflicts. There is a great deal of uncertainty about how effective investment treaty protections are in volatile times, how they relate to other applicable legal frameworks, and how they affect the state security policy and the post-conflict transition to peace. This book explores how foreign investment is protected in times of armed conflict under the investment treaty regime. It does so by combining insights from different areas of international law, including international investment law, international humanitarian law, international human rights law, the law of state responsibility, and the law of treaties. While the protections have evolved over time, with the investment treaty regime providing the strongest legal framework for protecting investors yet, there has been an apparent shift in treaty practice towards safeguarding a state's security interests. Jure Zrilic identifies and analyses the flaws in the existent normative framework, but also highlights the potential that investment treaties have for minimising the devastating effects of armed conflict. The book offers an analytical framework for assessing the investment treaty regime in times of armed conflict, distinguishing between different paradigms and different types of conflicts. Crucially, he argues that a new approach is needed to appropriately balance the competing interests of host states and investors when it comes to investment protection in armed conflicts.

In Investments in Conflict Zones, a selected group of experts explores how armed conflicts, territorial disputes, and ‘frozen’ conflicts impact the application and interpretation of international investment law and how investment protection can be reconciled with such politically charged circumstances.

Assessing the extent to which armed conflict impacts the obligations that states have towards foreign investors and their investments under international investment treaties requires considering a wide range of issues, many of which are systemic in nature. These include substantive and procedural topics, not only with regard to international investment law, but also concerning the law on the use of force, international humanitarian law and human rights law, the law of treaties, the law of state responsibility and the law of state succession.This volume provides an in-depth assessment of the overlap between international investment law and the law of armed conflict by charting the terrain of the multifaceted and complex relationship between these two fields of public international law, fostering debate and offering novel perspectives on the matter.

This book analyses the way in which international human rights law (IHRL) and international investment law (IIL) are deployed – or fail to be deployed – in conflict countries within the context of natural resources extraction. It specifically analyses the way in which IIL protections impact on the parallel protection of economic, social and cultural rights (ESC rights) in the host state, especially the right to water. Arguing that current responses have been unsatisfactory, it considers the emergence of the 'Protect, Respect and Remedy' framework and the Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights (jointly the Framework) as a possible analytical instrument. In so doing, it proposes a different approach to the way in which the Framework is generally interpreted, and then investigates the possible applicability of this 'recalibrated' Framework to the study of the IHRL-IIL interplay in a host country in a protracted armed conflict: Afghanistan. Through the emblematic example of Afghanistan, the book presents a practical dimension to its legal analysis. It uniquely portrays the elusive intersection between these two bodies of international law within a host country where the armed conflict continues to rage and a full economic restructuring is taking place away from the public eye, not least through the deployment of IIL and the inaction – or merely partial consideration – of IHRL. The book will be of interest to academics, policy-makers, and practitioners of international organisations involved in IHRL, IIL and/or deployed in contexts of armed conflict.

Developments within various sub-fields of international law influence international investment law, but changes in investment law also have an impact on the evolution of other fields within international law. Through contributions from leading scholars and practitioners, this book analyses specific links between investment law and other sub-fields of international law such as the law on armed conflict, human rights, sustainable development, trade, development and EU law. In particular, this book scrutinises how concepts, principles and rules developed in the context of such sub-fields could inform the content of investment law. Solutions aimed at resolving problems in other settings may provide instructive examples for addressing current problems in the field of investment law, and vice versa. The underlying question is whether key sub-fields of public international law, notably international investment law, are open to cross-fertilisation, or, whether they are evolving further into self-contained regimes.

Investments in Conflict Zones' addresses the topical and underexplored role of international investment law in armed conflicts, disputed territories, and 'frozen' conflicts. The edited collection explores how these different conflict situations impact the application and interpretation of international investment law and how the protection of investors can be reconciled with the politically charged circumstances and state interests involved. Written by a selected group of experts from different fields of international law, the volume moves beyond the confines of investment law, offering novel insights on its intersection with the law of armed conflict, human rights law, the law of the sea, general international law and national laws, including those adopted by de facto regimes which lack recognition as states.

The book explores the effects of armed conflict and international humanitarian law on the interpretation and application of investment treaties.