International Investment Law

International Investment Law - Professor George Foster

• Course Number: LAW-388
• Course Type: Highly Specialized
• Credits: 2
• Enrollment Limit: 15
• Description:  Countries around the world have negotiated a vast network of treaties designed to stimulate foreign investment. These treaties provide extensive protections for covered investors, together with a private right of action before international arbitration tribunals to enforce those protections. At the same time, these treaties are controversial. They can restrict governments’ ability to regulate in the public interest, and the foreign investment they encourage can have adverse environmental and human rights impacts. This course explores investment treaties and other international law governing the treatment and regulation of foreign investment, focusing on: the scope of investment treaties and how investments can be structured to secure coverage under them; the diverse substantive protections provided to investors; host state defenses to investor treaty claims; and the interplay between investor protections, environmental laws and regulations, and human rights. Students are not expected to have any preexisting familiarity with international law, business law, or foreign investment.

International Investment Law is an elective course for the International Law Certificate, the Business Law Certificate, and the Certificate in Energy, Innovation, and Sustainability Law.

• Prerequisite: none
• Evaluation Method: Paper; class presentation
• Capstone: yes
• WIE: yes

Students who write a paper that satisfies the Capstone or WIE criteria will be eligible for an additional 1-unit credit, even if they do not use the paper to satisfy either requirement.