The Role of International Human Rights Law in Re-Shaping Investor-State Arbitration

Over the past few decades, a new process has dominated how States treat foreign investment and the consequences to States for breaching international standards. The system's key feature, the means for settling a foreign investor's dispute with a State that hosts the investment, lacks traditional elements of State judicial systems. Instead, it is a creature of State consent as reflected in international investment agreements (IIAs). In IIAs, States promise to treat foreign investment and the investors in a certain, fundamentally fair, way. Many IIAs authorize foreign investors and States to select private arbitrators to resolve claims that host States breached their promises under the IIA. The arbitrators, in turn, are empowered to issue arbitral awards.