This collection encompasses documents essential for an understanding of the historical background to this area, documents covering international investment protection rules, international investment protection dispute settlement, and other documents relevant for the study and practice of international investment law. The documents relevant to the historical background have been exhaustively collected and includes treaties dating back to 1886. This chapter allows the reader to track changes in important provisions, such as those concerned with full protection and security, expropriation, and fair and equitable treatment over time. Such historical documents are not otherwise readily accessible, even on the internet. It is an impressive, meticulously gathered collection of documents relevant to investor-state disputes.
As for the documents concerned with the rules of international investment protection, Dr Paparinskis has collected a comprehensive range of documents that are regularly needed for the interpretation of treaties, understanding the rules concerning responsibility of states and diplomatic protection, as well as the major multilateral investment protection agreements, such as the Energy Charter Treaty, NAFTA, and others that are more recent. This chapter contains recent bilateral model treaties and relevant investment protection treaties, largely involving on the one side the United Kingdom, the United States of America, the Netherlands, Germany, and France, and on the other side the countries of South America, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and African Countries. This chapter offers the ideal additional material needed while reading a leading case in investment law, saving the reader the challenge of picking and choosing the right document from the internet. Additionally, the book contains the latest versions of the model bilateral investment treaties of major capital importing and capital exporting countries.
Concerning international investment protection dispute settlements, Paparinskis has gathered the rules of ICSID, UNCITRAL, and other essential arbitration institutions that are relevant in the field of investment dispute settlement. This chapter on the whole contains rules that are relevant in ensuring that the parties receive an impartial and independent tribunal and a fair procedure. Paparinskis has collected not just the current version of the arbitral rules but also other versions; those of the International Chamber of Commerce, and of the UNCITRAL arbitral rules, for example. The book contains also the most essential IBA (International Bar Association) guidelines, relevant to evidence and conflict of interest. As with commercial arbitration, the questions of impartiality and independence lie at the core of international investment protection.
The arrangement of the book is very easy to follow and understand. Its organisation allows the reader to find the right provisions readily, even within the vast range material. Although it is true that most of the material is in theory accessible on the internet, it is often not as easy as one might expect to find the relevant material on a governmental website. In particular, the search for an older version or an old document may be exhausting. Also, some of the documents created prior to the decades in which each desk contained a workstation exist only as scanned images. Given that only some of the lecture halls in the dungeons of some buildings, even new libraries built by star architects, may lack reliable internet access, I wish that Dr Paparinskis had collected and published this collection earlier! To conclude, Basic Documents on International Investment Protection can be warmly recommended for use as a companion volume to courses on international dispute settlement and investment protection law. It would also be most useful as a practitioners' handbook.
