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Article

3 Mar 2017

Author:
Julia Cruz, Harvard Law School on Due Process of Law Foundation Blog

Commentary: Intl. investment treaties must balance foreign investment protection with human rights interests

"Putting the pieces together: human rights and investment law", 28 Feb 2017

As developing countries strive to improve their population’s wellbeing, foreign direct investment has been looked to as an important source of revenue...In order to attract these resources, countries enter into international treaties that seek to decrease the risks foreign companies would normally face...But [this] can easily become problematic because of the implications for a country’s most fundamental public choices...[I]t is crucial that tribunals strike a proper balance between investor protection and the public interest, especially when it comes to disputes which are so intrinsically related to human rights...ISDS has been failing to meet such standards...[I]t has proven to be a system isolated from other bodies of law – and in particular from international human rights law...Future investment treaties must balance foreign investment with other development strategies, making sure they are mutually reinforcing...The international community must work to ameliorate a reality in which the human rights and investment systems...sometimes undermine or even contradict each other.  Human rights law, development policy, and investment treaties can have common aims – and it is time to start making sure their means are also aligned.