The recent explosion of investment treaty arbitration marks a major transformation of both international and public law, above all because of the manner in which states have delegated core powers of the courts to private arbitrators.
This book outlines investment treaty arbitration as a public law system and demonstrates how it goes beyond all other forms of international adjudication in giving arbitrators a comprehensive jurisdiction to determine the legality of sovereign acts, and to award public funds to businesses that sustain loss as a result of government regulation. The analysis...

Investment arbitrators rely on sovereignty for their legal status just as investor-state disputes usually stem from disagreements about the role of the state in society. As a result, investment arbitration is a vehicle for the exercise of sovereign authority and a site for contesting sovereign choices. This book investigates and evaluates the decision-making record and policy trajectory of international investment arbitration, from theoretical, doctrinal, and empirical perspectives.
It analyzes the extent to which the system used to resolve disputes impacts on the role of government,...