Regulation of Foreign Investment

Challenges to International Harmonization

The main aim of this book is to assess the importance of international rules for foreign direct investment and the major challenges to international harmonization of those rules. Particular attention is paid to the most controversial and contentious issues with the view of appraising the prospects for establishing global rules. The book is divided into three parts; the first part includes papers assessing the role of national and international legislation with further distinction being made between bilateral, regional and multilateral legal frameworks. The second part addresses regulatory issues of technology transfer, labor, environment, subsidies and investment incentives, national security, public services and sovereign wealth funds. The final part looks at the experience of some international fora in addressing these issues and at some theoretical and conceptual problems of rule harmonization. The papers have been written by legal and economic scholars from leading universities.

Contents:

• Introduction (Zdenek Drabek and Petros C Mavroidis)
• Regulation of Investment in the Trade Régime: From ITO to WTO (Petros C Mavroidis)
• Domestic, Regional and Multilateral Investment Liberalization (Jorge A Huerta Goldman)
• Mode 3 of the GATS: A Model for Disciplining Measures Affecting Investment Flows? (Bart De Meester and Dominic Coppens)
• Labor Standards and Human Rights: Implications for International Trade and Investment (Drusilla K Brown, Alan V Deardorff and Robert M Stern)
• Interactions Between Subsidies Regulation and Foreign Investment, and the Primacy of the International Trade Regime (Tomer Broude)
• Environmental Protection (Daniel M Firger and Michael B Gerrard)
• Technology Transfer: Regulatory Issues and International Investment Agreements (Keith E Maskus)
• Sovereign Wealth Funds and Political Risk: New Challenges in the Regulation of Foreign Investment (Victoria Barbary and Bernardo Bortolotti)
• International Tribunals as Agents of Harmonization (Moshe Hirsch)
• Foreign Acquisitions and National Security: What are Genuine Threats? Whatare Implausible Worries? (Theodore H Moran)
• Public Services, Investment Liberalization and Protection (Federico Ortino)
• The EU Approach to Investment (Americo Beviglia Zampetti and Colin Brown)
• Harmonization of Rules on Foreign Investment (Zdenek Drabek)

Readership: Policy makers, negotiators, business councils, NGOs, legal profession (international trade and investment law), economic profession (academics).
Key Features:

• Treatment of “new generation” issues such as human rights or sovereign wealth funds
• Treatment of highly controversial issues of harmonization including subsidies, public services and technology transfer or the actual choice whether to harmonize or not
• Analysis provided by top international scholars