Book Description

Several themes emerge in this 2014-2015 edition of the Yearbook. The first is a notable focus on country and region-specific developments. Different articles focus on key developments in such countries as Australia, Brazil, China, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Russia, and South Africa. Others focus on regional innovations, in particular in Latin America. A second area of attention is reform, and proposals for reform, in investor-state dispute settlement and in investment law generally. The third theme is the continued concern about states' regulatory autonomy and the importance of their retaining ability to protect the interests of their nationals. A fourth theme concerns the continued contribution that investment arbitration makes to the development of international law, and the influence that it is starting to have on other areas of law, whether that is as a source of inspiration in the interpretation of other norms or as a source of potentially powerful persuasive authority given the "teeth" that investment law has with respect to enforcement. Included are the winning memorials of the FDI Moot for both 2014 and 2015. In 2014 a team from the University of Ottawa submitted the winning claimant's memorial, while students from Harvard Law School submitted the winning respondent's memorial. In 2015, Harvard repeated its stellar performance, again winning best respondent's memorial. The winning claimant's memorial in 2015 was submitted by students from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. These excellent memorials reveal once again the growing interest of students in international investment law and demonstrate a striving for excellence and an enthusiasm for grappling with intellectually challenging issues.