{"id":1809,"date":"2009-06-01T09:01:34","date_gmt":"2009-06-01T16:01:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/site\/?p=1809"},"modified":"2010-11-19T08:42:44","modified_gmt":"2010-11-19T12:42:44","slug":"issue_50-2_kaushal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/2009\/06\/issue_50-2_kaushal\/","title":{"rendered":"Revisiting History"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Abstract<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>Foreign direct investment and bilateral investment  treaties have become key building blocks of the international legal and  economic architecture. There are over 2,600 bilateral investment  treaties (\u201cBITs\u201d) and a growing number of investor-state disputes. These  disputes have revealed a number of tensions in the BIT architecture,  including the discord between preserving sovereignty and attracting  investment and concern over the scope of treaty obligations. Such  tensions point to a growing backlash against the regime of investment  treaty arbitration characterized by critiques of substantive bias,  procedural shortcomings, and political consequences.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>This Article explores the historical and jurisdictional factors that underpin the mounting critique. The  Article places the international investment regime, which hinges on the  BIT, in historical context. It asserts that the regime is characterized  by a unique bargain in which developing countries traded part of their  regulatory sovereignty for the promise of foreign investment. However,  several recent studies suggest that BITs may not affect the flow of  investment to signatory countries, calling into question the basis of  the bargain. After laying the historical groundwork, the Article argues  that the real bargain underlying the BIT regime is one in which  countries bargained away sovereignty for the enhanced protection of the  property and contract rights of foreigners. The nature of this bargain,  together with the historical features of the BIT regime, resulted in the  collapsing of two key binaries that formerly structured the field: the  international\/national and the public\/private. The collapsed binaries  highlight some of the regime\u2019s internal contradictions and current  challenges.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This Article explores the historical and jurisdictional factors that underpin the mounting critique. The Article places the international investment regime, which hinges on the BIT, in historical context. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[123],"tags":[40],"class_list":["post-1809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-print-archives","tag-adr"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZu3S-tb","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1809\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}