World Trade Organization Rules Before Investment Tribunals: Facilitating Cross-Fertilisation While Appreciating Particularities

Abstract

Abstract The private organisation of production through global value chains has tightened the material connection between international trade and foreign investment while being simultaneously politicised by certain actors. This paper seeks to explore how the rules generated, interpreted, and applied in the World Trade Organization (WTO) have been received by arbitral tribunals deciding investment disputes. Three avenues make this reception possible: first, provisions in investment agreements rendering WTO law directly applicable to investment disputes; second, principles of interpretation allowing recourse to WTO rules as a tool for the interpretation of investment law; third, the authoritative value of WTO case law on points of general international law concerning the settlement of international (investment) disputes. These three avenues allow investment tribunals to build on the law and practice of the WTO with a view to facilitating the cross-fertilisation between the two fields, while appreciating the substantive, procedural and institutional particularities of investment law.