Investment arbitration and state-driven reform : new treaties, old outcomes / Wolfgang Alschner.

Based on author's thesis (doctoral - Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (Geneva, Switzerland), 2015) issued under title: State-driven change in international investment law and its (uncertain) impact on investor-state arbitration.

"A textbook summary of how international investment law developed over the past fifty years may go something like this. States signed thousands of largely similar international investment agreements (IIAs) to protect the property of their investors abroad. Most of these IIAs allowed foreign investors to sue host states via investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) for treaty breaches. ISDS was barely used until the late 1990s. When ISDS claims finally surged, states realized that their treaties offered greater investment protection than intended. States reacted by narrowing the commitments offered in newly concluded agreements. This backlash against investment arbitration resulted in a "new generation" of IIAs that rebalanced investment protection and host state regulatory autonomy"--