International Investment Law Reforms and the Draft Business and Human Rights Treaty: The More Things Change, the More They Remain the Same?

Abstract

Abstract Foreign investors enjoy the best of both worlds, often to the detriment of local communities, indigenous groups and other rightsholders who suffer violations in their wake. Such investors operate transnationally and access vast amounts of resources in host States around the world enjoying substantial rights secured through numerous trade and investment agreements while their human rights and other obligations remain less clear and more difficult to enforce. Given the relatively undertheorized interaction between efforts to come up with a binding treaty within the regime of business and human rights (BHR) and the reforms currently underway in the regime of international investment law (IIL), this contribution argues that despite reforms in IIL and progress towards a BHR treaty, rightsholders are likely to remain under protected in reality.