The number of Bilateral Investment Treaties or BITs has grown dramatically during the last few decades. They are presented as an important tool of FDI and a key factor contributing to foster economic growth and development. As underlined in the paper, BITs have become the major tool for the protection of investors against any adverse host country behavior. From the standpoint of host countries, BITs therefore appear as a way of attracting potential investors.
[...] As a consequence, they reduce their own profits from the potential investment and the potential investor appears as the sole winner of this situation of competition. Guzman suggests therefore that a collective action would be more beneficial to developing countries. Given each country's proper economic interests and the difficulty to define a common course of action, Guzman's suggestion appears as utopian. Another negative aspect of this state of things is that a high level of concessions often sets a precedent: once a country has granted some concessions to one investor, it can hardly refuse to grant the same concessions to another investor. [...]
[...] and Bilateral Investment Treaties BITs, United States government policy, and developing states: what are the BITs for? The number of BITs has grown dramatically during the last decades. They are presented as an important tool of FDI and a key factor contributing to foster economic growth and development. As underlined in the readings, BITs have become the major tool for the protection of investors from any adverse host country behaviour. From the standpoint of host countries, BITs therefore appear as a way of attracting potential investors. [...]
APA Style reference
For your bibliographyOnline reading
with our online readerContent validated
by our reading committee
