Law Commons^™

Bilateral Investment Treaties And Domestic Institutional Reform, Richard C. Chen

Faculty Publications

The bilateral investment treaties (BITs) signed between developed and developing countries are supposed to increase the flow of investment from the former to the latter. But the evidence indicates that the existing approach of guaranteeing special protections for foreign investors has only a modest impact on luring their dollars. At the same time they are failing to produce meaningful benefits, these treaty commitments create substantial costs for the host states that make them, exposing them to liability and constraining their regulatory authority. Given this state of imbalance, the time seems ripe for a new approach, but existing proposals for revising …