Comparative and International Investment Law: Prospects for Reform-An Introduction

Contemporary international investment law and arbitration are facing challenges which have been labelled as the ‘backlash’ against international investment law.1 In response, the backlash-related discussion has been very productively transformed into a reform debate in international organizations2 and academia.3 The present Special Issue of the Journal of World Investment & Trade on ‘Comparative and International Investment Law: Prospects for Reform’ includes contributions from scholars and practitioners in international law, comparative law, and international economic law that deal with the backlash and take different viewpoints, as well as sometimes different stances, regarding the future direction of the reform process. All the contributions follow though a similar methodological approach; they tap into a rather underutilized resource of the investment law regime: domestic investment law and policy. The articles look at the domestic level of investment governance from a comparative perspective, and examine the mutual interplays between domestic and international investment laws with a view to reform in the field.