Making the World Safe for Investment: The Protection of Foreign Property 1922-1959

The international legal order known as international investment law was established to protect foreign property from redistribution of wealth through domestic law-making. This book offers a pre-history of these legal arrangements, focusing on the time before 1959 and the ratification of the first bilateral investment treaty and the ICSID Convention. It introduces new archival material and scholarly writings on the protection of foreign property.

Format: Hardback
Length: 200 pages
Publication date: 02 March 2023
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

The international legal framework known as international investment law was established by Western governments, corporations, economists, and legal professionals to safeguard foreign property from redistribution of wealth through domestic lawmaking. This book provides a pre-history of these legal arrangements, focusing on the period prior to 1959, including the ratification of the first bilateral investment treaty and the ICSID Convention. It introduces new archival material, such as arbitral awards, diplomatic notes, and concession agreements, as well as scholarly writings on developments in these proceedings. These materials are organized into a coherent argument on the protection of foreign property. The book emphasizes the role of concession agreements in the making of international investment law and their internationalization, emphasizing the private law character of the foundations of the field. By viewing law as jurisdictional practice, rather than a system of norms, the book showcases the analytical power of this approach.

ISBN-13: 9781009330459