Informante AII Guía para Parlamentarios sobre los acuerdos internacionales de inversión y sus implicancias en la creación de políticas internas

The document examines how international investment agreements (IIAs), particularly bilateral investment treaties (BITs), can undermine domestic public policy and state sovereignty by allowing foreign investors to bypass national courts through international arbitration. It highlights cases in South Africa, the US, and Canada where environmental, social, and human rights policies were challenged. The guide argues for stronger parliamentary scrutiny of these treaties to ensure they do not conflict with constitutional obligations or human rights.

• International investment agreements (IIAs) are often negotiated by a small group of technical officials with minimal parliamentary oversight, potentially leading to treaties that conflict with delicate public interest regulations or domestic policies.
• Bilateral investment treaties (BITs) provide foreign investors with legal advantages over local investors, specifically the ability to use international arbitration rather than domestic courts to challenge government actions.
• In South Africa, foreign mining companies have used investment treaties to challenge Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) policies, which aim to provide social and economic preferences to historically disadvantaged people.
• In the United States, the NAFTA Chapter 11 investment protections have been used to challenge state-level environmental and health regulations, such as California's requirements for filling open-pit mines and the ban on the toxic chemical MTBE.
• Bolivia has formally withdrawn from the World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) due to a perceived bias toward investors and the view that international arbitration restricts the will of the electorate.
• There are ongoing legal and academic arguments that IIAs may be unconstitutional in some countries because they delegate judicial responsibilities to international arbitrators, potentially undermining judicial independence and human rights protections.
• The UNCITRAL arbitration rules are criticized by organizations like IISD and CIEL for allowing investor-state disputes to be conducted confidentially, which lacks transparency despite the significant public policy implications of the cases.

APA

International Institute for Sustainable Development (2007). Informante AII Guía para Parlamentarios sobre los acuerdos internacionales de inversión y sus implicancias en la creación de políticas internas. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/iia_insighter_issue_2_es.pdf

Chicago

International Institute for Sustainable Development. Informante AII Guía para Parlamentarios sobre los acuerdos internacionales de inversión y sus implicancias en la creación de políticas internas. 2007. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/iia_insighter_issue_2_es.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=International Institute for Sustainable Development |title=Informante AII Guía para Parlamentarios sobre los acuerdos internacionales de inversión y sus implicancias en la creación de políticas internas |date=September 2007 |url=https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/iia_insighter_issue_2_es.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{internationalinstituteforsustainabledevelopment2007informante, author = {{International Institute for Sustainable Development}}, title = {{Informante AII Guía para Parlamentarios sobre los acuerdos internacionales de inversión y sus implicancias en la creación de políticas internas}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2007}, month = sep, url = {https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/iia_insighter_issue_2_es.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }