This book outlines the protection standards typically contained in international investment agreements as they are actually applied and interpreted by investment tribunals. It thus provides a basis for analysis, criticism, and stocktaking of the existing system of investment arbitration. It covers all main protection standards, such as expropriation, fair and equitable treatment, full protection and security, the non-discrimination standards of national treatment and MFN, the prohibition of unreasonable and discriminatory measures, umbrella clauses and transfer guarantees. These standards are covered in separate chapters providing an overview of textual variations, explaining the origin of the standards and analysing the main conceptual issues as developed by investment tribunals. Relevant cases with quotations that illustrate how tribunals have relied upon the standards are presented in depth. An extensive bibliography guides the reader to more specific aspects of each investment standard permitting the book's use as a commentary of the main investment protection standards.
This ground-breaking book brings clarity to the dynamically developing field of international tax law. It empowers individuals and corporate taxpayers to navigate their way around and helps tax authorities take taxpayers' rights into account from the beginning. The book is the result of several years of research conducted with the support of the International Law Association. Taxpayers in International Law puts taxpayers' rights on the global international tax agenda as the necessary counterweight and complement to Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS). Importantly, it pleads for a global minimum standard of legal protection of the fundamental rights of taxpayers and extracts the content of such rights from relevant constitutional principles of many countries around the world. The book is structured in 3 parts: Part I focusses on the legal sources and on the relations between taxation and international human rights law. Part II identifies general principles and specific taxpayers' rights, groups them into 3 categories (procedural, related to sanctions, and substantive), and analyses the different implications that arise in each of them. Part III features concrete proposals for establishing a global framework for the protection of taxpayers' rights, including guidelines for tax authorities. The book is a unique instrument for the daily work of practitioners and international tax scholars interested in securing the protection of taxpayer's fundamental rights, as well as for those involved in tax collection worldwide. Taxpayers can refer to the book to find out which rulings and concepts can help them enforce their rights; tax authorities and judges can use the book to verify which rights have to be respected.
There is a growing interplay between international investment law, arbitration and human rights. This book offers a systematic analysis of this interaction, exploring the role of principles of justice in investment law, comparing investment arbitration with other courts, and examining case studies on human rights.
The Iran-United States Claims Tribunal is arguably the most significant arbitral institution of the twentieth century. Although the completion of its last few cases could take a long time, the Tribunal's impressive work must be made available now as a guide to the resolution of ongoing disputes and for future tribunals. The Tribunal has, by this point, disposed of well over 98 percent of its caseload. Little more remains for its participants to learn, but the Tribunal shows no signs of fading away. Both of the two States Parties, for different reasons, see greater advantage in the Tribunal's prolongation than in its elimination. The authors have succeeded in dealing with all of the most deserving Tribunal subjects. Moreover, their intimate involvement in and knowledge of the Tribunal ensure that their book is a fascinating, important, and indispensable contribution to the literature of International Law. This is a definitive book on a monumental event in the law and in history at the close of a century. "The Iran-United States Claims Tribunal" was awarded the ASIL Certificate of Merit.
Examination of the concept of "takings" in the context of international law and international investment agreements. It is an analysis of the law relating to the takings of foreign property by host countries and of the clauses International Investment Agreements' seeking to provide protection against such takings. It deals with the development of the law and considers both what possible protection against governmental interference can be given by international instruments and under what conditions and in which manner a State retains, under international law, the freedom to take action that may affect foreign property in the interests of its economic development.
In this paper, we present evidence indicating that international migrant remittances lead to improved developmental outcomes. Using a cross-section of all Mexican municipalities (over 2400) in the year 2000, we show that an increase in the fraction of households receiving international remittances is correlated with better schooling and health indicators and with reductions in poverty, even after controlling for the likely endogeneity between remittances and developmental outcome variables. Our findings have important policy implications as they suggest that national governments and the international community should adopt measures that facilitate remittance flows.
What are the main issues in Chile's trade agenda? This paper argues that the country's agenda does not lend itself to that traditional kind of policy advice usually given throughout Latin America. Protection is low and uniform, institutions that govern trade policy are strong and well protected from capture and the country has put a lot of effort in opening markets in the region and abroad. The important issues that come out of the analysis are to a great extent, "second generational". That is: export diversification, the regional distribution of trade gains, completion of the "multidimensional" trade strategy and transport costs. Whereas Chile has made progress in diversifying its exports away from copper, concentration is still high even when compared to other resource intensive countries. On the regional issue, it seems clear that Chile's export-led growth in the last two decades was not evenly distributed across the regions. On Chile's "multidimensional" trade strategy, Asia is clearly the missing link in the country's wide net of preferential agreements and the evidence available suggest that transport costs are these days a more important obstacle to Chile's trade than traditional trade barriers.