Description:

Please join the Comparative and International Relations Graduate Workshops as they host PhD student Daniel Loebell. Andrés Schelp will serve as discussant.

International arbitration in the global economy has become a recent manifestation of the regulatory conflict between states and foreign investors. The literature has generally described this conflict as either a world economy of signals against states’ attempts to reclaim public policy autonomy or a nebulous legal framework to circumvent domestic judiciaries. One predominant form of international arbitration, investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), is the process of foreign investors compelling a state to resolve any major disputes at a designated forum.  States enable ISDS by ratifying investment treaties with each other in the hopes of attracting foreign direct investment (FDI). Loebell's paper focuses on state actions against ISDS, such as withdrawing from the treaties that enshrine this form of arbitration or reforming these agreements to establish alternative dispute settlement forums.  He calls these state actions “counterstrategies,” because they are deliberate responses against investors’  initial strategy of approaching these arbitration forums. The states that implement counterstrategies have an implicit goal of reclaiming public policy autonomy. In this paper, he assesses the existing research analyzing the consequences of India, South Africa, and the state parties of the USMCA’s (the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement) counterstrategies over the past two decades. He examines these outcomes in tandem with the effect of counterstrategies on FDI flows to these states.

Please use the "More Info" link to register for virtual attendance.