Definitions, Standards of Treatment, Promotion and Protection of International Investments: An Introduction

The fact that foreign investments can be beneficial to growth and development is now generally accepted. However, opening up to Foreign Direct Investment has not always been governments’ priority. Not to mention that international investments can also challenge States’ sovereignty. This pendulum swing between liberalization and restriction has called for regulation. The regulatory effort takes place on three different, yet interrelated plans: domestic legislation, State contracts, and international investment law. The latest has greatly evolved from the early Treaties of Friendship and Navigation to today’s mega regional deals offering a complex set of trade rules. In spite of its extreme variety, international investment law finds a form of regulatory coherence around the definition of standards of treatment, protection, and promotion of the investment and investor. These standards are critically addressed in the “Definitions, Standards of Treatment, Promotion and Protection of International Investments” part of our Handbook, which provides the reader with a very accurate and insightful overview of a fast-changing field firmly grounded in public international law and yet touching upon a large variety of other legal domains. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021.