Investment Treaty Law, Sustainable Development and Responsible Business Conduct: A Fact Finding Survey

Kathryn Gordon, Joachim Pohl and Marie Bouchard
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Kathryn Gordon: OECD
Joachim Pohl: OECD
Marie Bouchard: OECD

No 2014/1, OECD Working Papers on International Investment from OECD Publishing

Abstract: Investment treaty law – which is scattered over 3 000 international investment agreements adopted over a period of 50 years – is a crucial but complex basis for regulating international investment flows. Investment treaties are often thought to be silent on investors’ responsibilities to host societies and on their contributions to sustainable development. The present paper establishes a factual and statistical basis for understanding the relationship between investment treaty law and governments’ ability to advance the sustainable development agenda and promote responsible business conduct. The paper presents survey results of 2 107 investment treaties and 1 113 treaty-based arbitration cases in order to shed light on how (if at all) labour, environmental, human rights and anti-corruption considerations are referred to in investment treaties and investor-state arbitration cases based on them.

Keywords: bribery; corruption; environmental law; investment treaties; investor state arbitration; ISDS; labour law (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F23 F53 K11 K33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-07-23
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env and nep-law
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oec:dafaaa:2014/1-en

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