INVESTMENT TREATIES AND GENERAL INTERNATIONAL LAW

Abstract

AbstractThe huge rise in the settlement of investment disputes by treaty has provoked an underlying question of great practical and theoretical importance: the relationship between the substantive standards protected in such treaties and general international law. This paper argues that the relationship is symbiotic: custom informing the content of the treay right; and State practice under investment treaties contributing to the development of general international law. It is the structured process of treaty interpretation which determines when and how reference to general international law may be made. Practice in this field supports a broader modern phenomenon, in which ‘general principles of law common to civilized nations’ may be informed not only by common principles of domestic law, but also by general principles of international law itself.