How Do Host States Respond to Investment Treaty Law? Some Empirical Observations

The proliferation of international investment treaty practice and the subsequent boom of investor-state arbitration have prompted an explosion of scholarly contributions analysing various aspects of this steadily expanding field of international law. Existing scholarship offers a rich seam of doctrinal, normative and theoretical critique of the evolving international investment law regime. However, with the exception of some recent studies, there have been relatively limited efforts to analyse international investment law empirically and, in particular, from a developing country perspective. This paper aims to contribute by filling the gap and offering some insights into the currently underexplored issue of how international investment law influences host-state behaviour. In particular, the aim of this study is to test existing claims about the transformative impact of international investment law on national governance in developing states. The analysis is carried out through a small-scale empirical case study, which focuses on how international investment law is perceived by government officials in developing countries whilst also elucidating how governments responded to investment treaty disciplines after experiencing the regime’s bite.