The start of a regime : the first generation of western European bilateral investment treaties (1959-1989)

Korte inhoud:On a worldwide basis, there exist more than 3000 bilateral investment treaties (BITs). These are international agreements between (usually) two states in which both sides agree to specific legal rules and dispute settlement procedures to govern investments undertaken by nationals of one treaty party in the territory of the other treaty party. This thesis investigates the origins of those treaties. Why do BITs look the way they do? Why did Western European countries start negotiating these agreements? What did diplomats aim to do when including some inherently vague provisions (e.g. the requirement to provide ‘fair and equitable treatment’) in these BITs? This thesis zooms in on the law and policy of BITs in (West-)Germany, Switzerland and The Netherlands, three early and very active negotiators, using an extensive corpus of archival sources from both state and private archives that have not been looked at before by lawyers or historians.

Jaar van publicatie:2023

Toegankelijkheid:Closed