Investment Arbitration and the Law of Countermeasures

Abstract

The contemporary law of foreign investment protection could be said to consist of several strata of legal arguments. The results of the more recent efforts of law-making sometimes accept and incorporate the classic rules; sometimes clarify the classic ambiguities or replace the unsatisfactory solutions; sometimes permit different approaches in parallel; and quite often maintain constructive ambiguity regarding the precise relationship between different rules. The present contribution seeks to examine the contemporary relationship between the two concepts that typify the contrast between classic and modern approaches to investment protection law in perhaps the starkest terms: the law of countermeasures and investment arbitration.