LSE Associate Professor of Law Jan Kleinheisterkamp and IHR Project Correspondent Jonathan Bonnitcha have created two thought-provoking videos for the recently launched video channel “New Thinking on Investment Treaties” — organised jointly by the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment at Columbia University and the Global Economic Governance Programme at Oxford University. Professor Kleinheisterkamp discusses a key policy issue for governments – whether investment treaties, as we know them today, provide greater protections to foreign investors than those enjoyed by domestic investors. He then relates this to the context of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations now continuing between the European Union and the United States. Jonathan Bonnitcha discusses whether there is an economic and legal rationale behind international investment treaties as fashioned today and calls into question the policy discourse around ‘balancing investor protection with the State’s right to regulate’.
These discussions are a great contribution to the ongoing debate around investment treaties and Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), and they provide useful elements for thinking about human rights and investment. For example, they address the potential for treaties to place undue restrictions on a States’ ability to meet their duty to protect human rights as well as the availability of monetary compensation provided to investors under ISDS without exhaustion of local remedies.
The videos can be viewed here. New videos will be offered periodically on the Channel.
Photo credit: Global Justice Now 2014
