We argue that the trend toward international investment agreements (IIAs) with stricter investment rules is driven by competitive diffusion, namely defensive moves of developing countries concerned about foreign direct investment (FDI) diversion in favor of competing host countries. Accounting...

We argue that the trend toward international investment agreements (IIAs) with stricter investment rules is driven by competitive diffusion, namely defensive moves of developing countries concerned about foreign direct investment (FDI) diversion in favor of competing host countries. Accounting...

When an investor sues a state for alleged breaches of its obligations under an investment treaty or a trade agreement with investment provisions, all that should matter for who wins the case are the merits of the claim itself. Alas, investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) does not take place...

Political units often spatially depend in their policy choices on other units. This also holds in dyadic settings where, as in much of international relations research, the focus of the analysis is the pair or dyad of two political units. Yet, with few exceptions, social scientists have analyzed...

Economic, political and legal developments in the 1990s occa-sioned OECD members to start negotiations on a multilateral agreement on investment (MAI) in 1995. Three years later these negotiations broke down. While internal disagreements abounded, the opposition from parts of civil society had...

Foreign investors are often skeptical toward the quality of the domestic institutions and the enforceability of the law in developing countries. Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) guarantee certain standards of treatment that can be enforced via binding investor-to-state dispute settlement...