Abstract

The Cold War period stretches over several decades ranging roughly from the post-World War II period to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and is everything but a homogenous or linear period. In that period, the law of foreign investment has developed remarkably, and it has done so alongside specific paths, which are linked to the specific nature of the law of foreign investment and its purported purpose. In this lecture Professor De Brabandere, aside from presenting the main features of the developments of the law of foreign investment during the Cold War, will also discuss certain overarching patterns. These include the influence decolonisation has had, the paradoxical and paralleled expansion and repudiation of the law of foreign investment, and the move from multilateralism to bilateralism in the second part of the Cold War period.

Speaker

Eric De Brabandere is Professor of International Dispute Settlement Law and Director of the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies. He is also Attorney-at-Law at the Brussels Bar (with DMDB Law) practicing in international law and investment arbitration, Editor-in-Chief of the Leiden Journal of International Law, and a member of the Board of Editors of the Journal of World Investment & Trade, the Revue belge de droit international (Belgian Review of International Law), and the Martinus Nijhoff Investment Law Book Series. He formerly held visiting professorships at the University of Trento in Italy (in international investment law) and the Catholic University of Lille in France (in international dispute settlement).