The Protection of Foreign Investment in Times of Armed Conflict

Foreign investors often sustain injuries during violent situations, such as riots, revolutions, civil wars, and international armed conflicts. There is a great deal of uncertainty about how effective investment treaty protections are in volatile times, how they relate to other applicable legal frameworks, and how they affect the state security policy and the post-conflict transition to peace. This book explores how foreign investment is protected in times of armed conflict under the investment treaty regime. It does so by combining insights from different areas of international law, including international investment law, international humanitarian law, international human rights law, the law of state responsibility, and the law of treaties. While the protections have evolved over time, with the investment treaty regime providing the strongest legal framework for protecting investors yet, there has been an apparent shift in treaty practice towards safeguarding a state’s security interests.Jure Zrilic identifies and analyses the flaws in the existent normative framework, but also highlights the potential that investment treaties have for minimising the devastating effects of armed conflict. The book offers an analytical framework for assessing the investment treaty regime in times of armed conflict, distinguishing between different paradigms and different types of conflicts. Crucially, he argues that a new approach is needed to appropriately balance the competing interests of host states and investors when it comes to investment protection in armed conflicts.