The Redesign of International Investment Contracts

Highlighting how and why international investment contracts are central to foreign investment, this book explores their evolution and, in turn, their role in shaping global regimes. Leading scholars and practitioners shed light on how contracts between states and investors allocate risk, distribute regulatory authority, and respond to pressures concerning sustainability, human rights, and the environment.

The book provides a fresh conceptual lens for rethinking international investment contracts as dynamic instruments of governance. Chapters challenge conventional boundaries by questioning established assumptions about the limits of contract law, the role of contracts in global governance, and the relationships between private and public ordering. Contributing authors explore the interdisciplinary nature of the topic, covering issues from historical development, methods of harmonisation, and model contracts to corruption and tensions between investments and the commercial nature of sovereign debt contracts. The book examines both the need for, and the potential to, redesign of international investment contracts for a more resilient and accountable global economy.

Bridging theory and practice, The Redesign of International Investment Contracts is an essential resource for students and scholars of international investment and arbitration law. Practitioners and policymakers in contract, sustainability, and private international law will also benefit from the book’s forward-looking and pragmatic approach.