Treaty Conflicts in Investment Arbitration

Abstract

The thesis assesses one of the core problems arising in international investment law, namely, the conflicts that international investment treaties may create with other international agreements. This topic is so important because investment treaties are primarily intended to protect the interests of foreign investors, and do not clarify how they relate to other international agreements protecting interests that may compete with the interests of foreign investors. Tensions exist, inter alia, between international investment law and other branches of international law, such as human rights, international environmental, and EU law. These tensions are exacerbated by the fragmented nature of international investment law as a law governed by several thousand bilateral treaties. Ultimately, the multiple problems of fragmentation may put the legitimacy of international investment treaties and investor-state arbitration into question.