Investment protection in offshore energy production: Bright sides of regime interaction

Abstract

At the international law level, the regulation of offshore energy projects does not fall neatly into one global regime. On the contrary, it is subject to a plethora of overlapping legal regimes, including the law of the sea, international environmental law, international economic law, and international energy law. The present article addresses the question how regime interaction affects investment protection in the offshore energy sector. Specifically, it investigates whether cross-fertilization between regimes also has 'positive' effects on the protection of investments in offshore energy or whether fragmentation consists of both a perceived and actual challenge. We submit that, even though regime interaction poses challenges to investment protection, the influence of the overlapping legal frameworks is not necessarily a 'threat' to investment protection. To the contrary, regime interaction can contribute to widen the objectives of international investment law.