Christian Tietje Knihy

The WTO system is a highly controversial international legal regime. Like no other, it captivates the aspiration and discontents of globalization's economic dimension. Proponents view the WTO system as a „[s]uccess [s]tory of [g]lobal [g]overnance“ that avoids „a world of inward-looking trade blocs and self-destructive factionalism“ and is „overwhelmingly“ in the interest of all participating countries. Moreover, proponents argue, the WTO system plays „to the advantage of the smallest and weakest countries“ because it "replaces the role of 'power' in international trade relations with the 'rule of law'". In contrast, critics contend that the WTO's "impact on the world's poor has been overwhelmingly negative„, that it “institutionalizes the subordination of development to corporate free trade„ and that it “ignore[s] non-trade concerns such as environmental protection, consumer rights, labor rights, and state sovereignty".

In the last years, the law of international investment protection has increasingly caught the attention of international lawyers, both practitioners and academics. In this regard, two related but often not comprehensively covered aspects are relevant: arbitral proceedings and awards on the one side, and individual commercial interests of enterprises which are engaged in foreign direct investment or international portfolio investment on the other. The applicable law in order to protect these commercial interests is both, of an international and national character, and concerns a broad range of issues. The same is true with regard to applicable procedural and substantive law in arbitral proceedings. It is the central aim of the present volume to try to merge the different perspective on international investment protection law, i. e., not only to focus on specific questions of investment arbitration, but also to cover other legal aspects being of interest to investors, and home as well as host states with regard to foreign direct investment. Moreover, not only the law as it stands, but also possible future developments are discussed. The papers being published in this volume have been presented by experts from academia and private and governmental practice at conferences organized by the Transnational Economic Law Research Center (TELC) at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg.