DOCTORAL DISSERTATION RESEARCH: SACRIFICING SOVEREIGNTY: EXPLAINING STATE CONSENT TO BINDING ARBITRATION WITH FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTORS

本项目考察了双边投资条约（BITs）中投资者-国家仲裁条款的现象。该项目解决了两个重要但尚未得到充分研究的问题。为什么越来越多的国家选择放弃国际法规定的一项基本主权权利：免于外国直接投资者在国际法庭提起诉讼？放弃这一权利真的有助于吸引外国投资吗？拟议的项目将提供对双边投资协定/仲裁现象的第一个系统和理论上知情的实证分析之一。特别是，该项目将开发一个独特的数据集，系统地评估每个BIT的争端解决和其他实质性条款的相对强度。争端解决措施将作为检验项目核心预测的一系列统计模型的依赖变量和关键解释变量：民主程度较低的资本输入国倾向于签订具有强有力的有利于投资者的争端解决条款的双边投资协定，而具有最强有力的投资者保护条款的双边投资协定对外国直接投资（FDI）流入的积极影响要大于条款较弱的双边投资协定。

This project examines the phenomenon of investor-state arbitration provisions in bilateral investment treaties (BITs). The project addresses two important and understudied questions. Why are states increasingly choosing to relinquish one of their fundamental sovereign rights under international law: immunity from suit by foreign direct investors before international tribunals? And does relinquishing that right actually help to attract foreign investment? The proposed project will provide one of the first systematic and theoretically informed empirical analyses of the BIT/arbitration phenomenon. In particular, the project will develop a unique dataset that systematically evaluates the relative strength of each BIT's dispute settlement and other substantive provisions. The dispute settlement measure will serve alternately as the dependent and key explanatory variable in a series of statistical models testing the project's core predictions: that weakly democratic capital importing states will tend to conclude BITs with strong pro-investor dispute settlement provisions, and that BITs with the strongest investor protection provisions will have stronger positive impacts on foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows than will BITs with weaker provisions.