Authority and Interpretation in Investment Protection: Reasons, Rationality and Social Justice

Wednesday, March 31, 2021 - 13:00 to 14:00
Zoom

The Department of Law Research Committee welcome Dr Oisin Suttle to our next Lunchtime Research Seminar on Wednesday 31st at 1pm on Zoom. 

What role should concerns about social justice play in investment arbitration? This paper argues that answers to fundamental and contestable questions of social and global distributive justice are a necessary, if implicit, premise of investment arbitration decisions. In particular, they determine the scope of authority that investment law can claim, and that states should accord it. The implausibility of achieving international consensus on these questions constitutes a substantial objection to any project of harmonization of investment law, or to the consistent operation of a multilateral investment court. However, it concludes, this need not be a problem, given the limited normative significance of arguments for such harmonization.