Regional Courts and the Development of International Investment Law

The paper aims at providing an overview of the contribution of regional courts in the development of international investment law and exploring whether a greater contribution may be expected in the near future, taking into account the marked trend towards regionalism and the attempts to establish regional courts currently underway. It is structured in four parts. Part II develops some preliminary considerations on the main peculiarities of the legal framework governing foreign investment that are necessary to understand the actual and potential role of regional courts in this relatively young area of law. Part III and VI examine, respectively, the contribution of investment and non-investment regional courts to the development of the rules on the protection of foreign investment. Finally, Part IV deals with the prospective contribution that regional courts could offer to the development of international investment law, including in terms of stability and predictability of the whole system.