Reviews
"In a field where much of the secondary literature is merely descriptive or reactive (or both), Schill's deep consideration of the issues offers a fresh perspective, and it is to be warmly welcomed into the literature." Chester Brown, Australian International Law Journal, 'Dr Schill's thesis must be praised both for the thorough analysis of its subject matter and for the wealth of information it provides on the current state of international investment law.' Transnational Dispute Management, 'Stephan Schill's book, The Multilateralization of International Investment Law, stands apart from the rest of the literature on international investment law which has burgeoned in the past few years. In contrast to most publications on the market, this volume, adapted from the author's Ph.D. thesis, does not attempt to summarize and systematize the developments in arbitral practice. Instead, it reveals an important and previously unexplored dimension of the investment treaty phenomenon by presenting an original vision of the landscape formed by more than 3,000 international investment agreements (IIAs). The author advances and substantiates the seemingly counter-intuitive thesis that these predominantly bilateral instruments do not result in chaotic fragmentation but, taken together, 'function analogously to a truly multilateral system'.' Sergey Ripinsky, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Geneva, 'A distinctive feature of the book is that it is not limited to traditional legal analysis, but is grounded in the broader social, economic, and ideological reality. In doing so, the author has relied upon an impressive range of literature from related fields such as law and economics and international relations. As a result, he manages cleverly and harmoniously to combine a big-picture view with a detailed analysis of BIT provisions and arbitral practice. The drafting style is exceptionally clear ... this wide-ranging analysis offers longer-term rewards by significantly advancing the understanding of the foundations, rationales, structure, and operation of the current system of international investment law.' globallawbooks.org, 'A distinctive feature of the book is that it is not limited to traditional legal analysis, but is grounded in the broader social, economic, and ideological reality. In doing so, the author has relied upon an impressive range of literature from related fields such as law and economics and international relations. As a result, he manages cleverly and harmoniously to combine a big-picture view with a detailed analysis of BIT provisions and arbitral practice. The drafting style is exceptionally clear … this wide-ranging analysis offers longer-term rewards by significantly advancing the understanding of the foundations, rationales, structure, and operation of the current system of international investment law.' globallawbooks.org
Synopsis
Attempts at developing a theory of international investment law are complicated by the fact that this field of international law is based on numerous, largely bilateral treaties and is implemented by arbitral panels established on a case-by-case basis. This suggests a fragmented and chaotic state of the law, with different levels of protection depending on the sources and targets of foreign investment flows. This book, however, forwards the thesis that international investment law develops, despite its bilateral form, into a multilateral system of law that backs up the functioning of a global market economy based on converging principles of investment protection. In discussing the function of most-favored-nation clauses, the possibilities of treaty-shopping and the impact of investor-State arbitration with its intensive reliance on precedent and other genuinely multilateral approaches to treaty interpretation, it offers a conceptual framework for understanding the nature and functioning of international investment law as a genuinely multilateral system., International investment law is largely based on bilateral treaties rather than a multilateral convention. Instead of this leading to different levels of investment protection, Stephan Schill argues that international investment law is emerging as a structured body of law that governs investor-State relations based on uniform principles of investment protection.
