Human Rights in International Investment Protection. Too Little for Defence?

Abstract

The study examines the interface between human rights and investment protection from the perspective of the content of international investment protection, bilateral and multilateral conventions, and the arbitration jurisprudence that has developed in relation to them. It is found that investment protection conventions do not, in principle, contain human rights content, but that some arbitral tribunals do not reject the implicit application of such content in their context. The paper lists several cases where there has been human rights content considered that can be integrated into investment protection, noting that further, mainly multilateral, conventions are needed to reconcile effective fundamental rights protection with investment protection.