CYIL vol. 8 (2017)

CYIL 8 ȍ2017Ȏ ALTERNATIVE VISIONS OF THE INTERNATIONAL LAW ON FOREIGN INVESTMENT C. L. Lim (ed.) Alternative Visions of the International Law on Foreign Investment: Essays in Honour of Muthucumaraswamy Sornarajah.

Cambridge University Press, 2016, 529 pp.

[Alternativní pohledy mezinárodního práva na zahraniční investice: Pocta Muthucumaraswamy Sornarajah]

Jürgen Kurtz

The WTO and International Investment Law: Converging Systems

Cambridge University Press, 2016, 326 pp. 1

[WTO a mezinárodní investiční právo: konvergující systémy]

International investment law is currently under intense scrutiny due to widespread concerns about the investment regime’s functioning and impact. Recent development continues to support the hypothesis of global backlash against investment protection and investor-state arbitration. For instance, only in the EU itself, the European Commission initiated two public consultations over three years on protection of foreign investors and the investment dispute settlement system, 2 in order to mitigate, at least partially, criticism voiced by the public of the whole concept. Critical attention towards this development from academia in 2016 also produced two excellent books: Alternative Visions of the International Law on Foreign Investment: Essays in Honour of Muthucumaraswamy Sornarajah and TheWTO and International Investment Law: Converging Systems . Alternative Visions of the International Law on Foreign Investment is a volume of sixteen contributions divided into seven parts and edited by C. L. Lim to honour professor Muthucumaraswamy Sornarajah on the occasion of his retirement from the National University of Singapore, where he spent the majority of his academic life. Professor Sornarajah is a prominent authority in investment law, particularly known for his generally critical eye through which he observes development of this area of public international law. His probably most famous book The International Law on Foreign Investment was published in 1994 and is one of the most essential books in this field; it was recently updated for its 4 th edition. 3 The 2 European Commission. Online public consultation on investment protection and investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Agreement (TTIP) , 13. 1. 2015, SWD(2015) 3 final; European Commission. Consultation Strategy - Impact Assessment on the Establishment of a Multilateral Investment Court for investment dispute resolution , 30. 12. 2016. 3 SORNARAJAH, Muthucumaraswamy, The International Law on Foreign Investment , Cambridge University Press, 2017. 1 This review was supported by the Charles University, project GA UK No 410217.

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