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Risky Business or Risky Politics: What Explains Investor-State Disputes?

  • Although not a clear cut question of treaty compliance, this project takes as its theoretical point of departure two potentially opposing explanations for state compliance with international agreements, and asks whether investor-state disputes are better explained by shifting state preferences toward FDI (or a particular investment), or the lack of state capacity to maintain an investment-friendly environment. The project is structured around three sub-research questions: 1) which domestic institutions are taking the measures that are subsequently challenged by investors? What is the content of these measures? Against investors in which industries are these measures being taken? 2) Under what economic and political conditions are investor-state arbitration cases most likely to occur?3) Are these changes in policy toward investment the outcome of a shift in preferences on the part of state actors toward investment, or are they instead the result of a lack of institutional capacity to respect IIAs? This project adopts a mixed-methods approach to the research question, with empirical chapters based on the qualitative coding of an original dataset of investor-state disputes; a regression analysis, and three case studies of specific disputes in Canada, El Salvador, and Hungary. Therefore, this project paints a general picture of investor-state disputes not as the result of a failure of bureaucratic capacity, but as incidences in which (private) transnational actor preferences truly conflict with those of domestic actors, and in which the state chooses its obligation to the latter rather than the former. If we accept that investor-state arbitration has the potential to impose significant costs on states, it is important when either justifying or criticising the regime to have an understanding of for which policy measures, and at whose behest, states are incurring these costs. These findings in turn have relevance for those who wish to improve investor-state relations and avoid investor-state disputes, as well as attempts to reform the investment arbitration system.

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Metadaten
Document Type:Doctoral Thesis
Language:English
Author(s):Zoe Phillips Williams
Advisor:Anke Hassel, Markus Krajewski
Hertie Collections (Serial Number):Dissertations submitted to the Hertie School (02/2016)
Publication year:2016
Publishing Institution:Hertie School
Granting Institution:Hertie School
Thesis date:2016/06/23
Release Date:2017/08/08
Notes:
Shelf mark: 2018D004 + 2018D004+1
Hertie School Research:Publications PhD Researchers
Licence of document (German):Creative Commons - CC BY-NC-ND - Namensnennung - Nicht kommerziell - Keine Bearbeitungen 4.0 International
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