First Bilateral Investment Treaties - U.s. Postwar Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation Treaties

This book is the first and only history of the U.S. postwar Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation (FCN) treaty program, and focuses on the investment-related provisions of those treaties. This author explains the original understanding of the language of this vast network of agreements which have been and continue to be the subject of hundreds of international arbitrations and billions of dollars in claims. It is based on a review of some 32,000 pages of negotiating history housed in the National Archives.

List of contents

• Introduction


• About This Book


• New Deal Liberalism


• New Deal Liberalism in U.S. Foreign Investment Policy


• 1. U.S. Postwar Foreign Investment Policy


• Promoting Global Full Employment


• The Role of International Investment


• The Need to Promote and Regulate International Investment


• Developing a Foreign Investment Policy


• 2. Launching the U.S. Postwar FCN Treaty Program


• Inauguration of the U.S. Postwar FCN Treaty Program


• Preparing a Standard Draft Treaty


• The Influence of the American Business Community


• Negotiating the First Postwar FCN Treaty: China


• Negotiating an FCN Treaty with Italy


• Proposing an FCN Treaty with the Soviet Union


• 3. Seeking a Multilateral Treaty on Investment: The International Trade Organization


• The Proposal for an International Trade Organization


• The London Preparatory Meeting


• The Proposal for an Investment Code


• Drafting an Investment Code


• Proposing an Investment Code in Geneva


• Amending the U.S. Proposal in Geneva


• Negotiating the U.S. Proposal in Geneva


• The Cold War Comes to Geneva


• 4. Abandoning the International Trade Organization


• Devising a Strategy for the Havana Conference


• The Havana Conference


• The Aftermath of the Havana Conference


• 5. The FCN Treaties Become Investment Treaties


• Truman Proposes the Point Four Program


• Creating a Point Four Program


• Contemplating a New Investment Treaty


• Point Four Assistance and FCN Treaties


• Negotiating an FCN Treaty with Colombia


• Negotiating an FCN treaty with Uruguay


• Negotiating an FCN Treaty with Ireland


• Senate Advice and Consent to Ratification 1950


• 6. Negotiating the First Bilateral Investment Treaties: The Truman Years


• U.S. Negotiating Strategy


• Negotiating an FCN Treaty with Greece


• Negotiating an FCN Treaty with Denmark


• Negotiating with Italy -- Again


• Negotiating an FCN Treaty with Israel


• Negotiating an FCN Treaty with Ethiopia


• Negotiating an FCN Treaty with Japan


• Senate Advice and Consent to Ratification 1952-1953


• Investment Treaties at the End of the Truman Administration


• 7. Negotiating the First Bilateral Investment Treaties: After the Truman Years


• Negotiating an FCN Treaty with Germany


• Negotiating an FCN treaty with Haiti


• Negotiating an FCN Treaty with Iran


• Negotiating an FCN Treaty with Nicaragua


• Negotiating an FCN Treaty with the Netherlands


• Negotiating an FCN Treaty with Korea


• Negotiating an FCN treaty with the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman


• Negotiating an FCN Treaty with Pakistan


• Negotiating an FCN Treaty with France


• Senate Advice and Consent to Ratification 1960


• Negotiating an FCN treaty with Belgium


• Negotiating an FCN Treaty with Vietnam


• Senate Advice and Consent to Ratification 1961


• Negotiating an FCN Treaty with Togo


• Negotiating an FCN Treaty with Thailand


• Continuity in the Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford Administrations


• 8. The International Law of Foreign Investment in the FCN Treaties


• Companies Protected by the Treaty


• Fair and Equitable Treatment


• Most Constant Protection and Security


• Treatment in Accordance with International Law


• Unreasonable or Discriminatory Measures


• National Treatment


• Most Favored Nation Treatment


• Expropriation


• Exchange Controls


• Employment


• Entry and Sojourn


• Judicial Access


• CoTransparency


• International Peace and Security


• Essential Security Interests


• Consultations


• Compromissory Clause


• Epilogue


• Appendix


• Excerpts from the 1955 Standard Draft U.S. FCN Treaty


• Index

About the author

Kenneth J. Vandevelde is Professor of Law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law where he teaches international investment law and arbitration as well as public international law. He served as President and Dean of the law school from 1994 to 2005. Professor Vandevelde published extensively on international investment law, arbitration, and bilateral investment treaties authoring: United States Investment Treaties: Policy and Practice (1992), U.S. International Investment Agreements (Oxford, 2009), and Bilateral Investment Treaties: History, Policy, and Interpretation (Oxford, 2010). He published a number of articles on international investment law included in the American Journal of International Law. He served as a consultant on international investment law to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the United Nations and various foreign governments. He worked at the U.S. Department of State's Office of the Legal Adviser and the Execut

Summary

The First Bilateral Investment Treaties is the first and only history of the U.S. postwar Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation (FCN) treaty program, and focuses on the investment-related provisions of those treaties. The 22 U.S. postwar FCN treaties were the first bilateral investment treaties ever concluded, and nearly all of the core provisions in the modern network of more than 3000 international investment agreements worldwide trace their origin to these FCN treaties. This book explains the original understanding of the language of this vast network of agreements which have been and continue to be the subject of hundreds of international arbitrations and billions of dollars in claims. It is based on a review of some 32,000 pages of negotiating history housed in the National Archives.

This book demonstrates that the investment provisions were founded on the New Deal liberalism of the Roosevelt-Truman administrations and were intended to acquire for U.S. companies investing abroad the same protections that foreign investors already received in the United States under the U.S. Constitution. It chronicles the failed U.S. attempt to obtain protection for investment through the proposed International Trade Organization (ITO), providing the first and only history of the investment-related provisions in the ITO Charter. It then shows how the FCN treaties, which dated back to 1776 and originally concerned with establishing trade and maritime relations, were re-conceptualized as investment treaties to provide investment protection bilaterally. This book is also a work of diplomatic history, offering an account of the negotiating history of each of the 22 treaties and describing U.S. negotiating policy and strategy.

Additional text

Professor Vandevelde provides a very much needed prequel to studies of the modern investment treaty regime. He traces key treaty provisions back to the late 1940s when efforts to launch an International Trade Organization failed, and investment principles then migrated into U.S. Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation (FCN) treaties. Most valuable is the chapter collecting the U.S. State Department's interpretation of provisions so central in bilateral investment treaties disputes today.

Product details

• Authors: Kenneth J. Vandevelde, Kenneth J. (Professor of Law Vandevelde, Vandevelde Kenneth J.
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 08.06.2017
• EAN: 9780190679576
• ISBN: 978-0-19-067957-6
• No. of pages: 592
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Law > International law, foreign law; LAW / Legal History, LAW / International, LAW / Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice, LAW / Arbitration, Negotiation, Mediation, International Economics, International Arbitration, International Finance, Investment Treaties & Disputes, Treaties & Other Sources Of International Law, Public international law: treaties and other sources, International law: arbitration