Monthly archive November, 2014

PIL and IEL: Will seal deaths resurrect the dream of international legal coherence?

‘Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.’ Aldous Huxley, Brave New World 1.   Introduction Some dream of Eldorado and others the Fountain of Youth; international lawyers of a certain breed dream of greater coherence between Public International Law (PIL) and International Economic Law (IEL). Many classify the dream as...

Do investment treaties unduly constrain regulatory space?

1. Framing the issue: Investment treaties and regulatory space International investment law (IIL) is at a crossroads. A large number of investment treaties and investor-state arbitrations, and rapidly expanding scholarly writing, have made IIL one of the most dynamic branches of international law. However, the proliferation of treaties and arbitrations has also made IIL a...

Regulatory autonomy and liberalization of trade and investment flows: how are these competing interests balanced by international economic law?

Introduced by Giovanna Adinolfi, Claudio Dordi and Tarcisio Gazzini It has often been argued that trade and investment treaties unduly restrain the host State’s prerogatives and in particular its capacity to meet its responsibilities in areas such as the protection of the environment, human rights and other social values. The extent to which this argument...