IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/inecon/v145y2023ics0022199623000776.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Standing in international investment and trade disputes

Author

Listed:
  • Ossa, Ralph
  • Staiger, Robert W.
  • Sykes, Alan O.

Abstract

International investment agreements employ dispute settlement procedures that differ markedly from their counterparts in trade agreements. A prominent and controversial difference arises with respect to the issue of “standing”: Who has the right to complain to adjudicators about a violation of the agreement? While trade agreements limit standing to the member governments (state-to-state dispute settlement), investment agreements routinely extend standing to private investors as well (investor-state dispute settlement). We develop parallel models of trade and investment agreements and employ them to study this difference. We find that the difference in standing between trade and investment agreements can be understood as deriving from the fundamentally different problems that these agreements are designed to solve. Our analysis also identifies some important qualifications to the case for including investor-state dispute settlement provisions in investment agreements, thereby offering a potential explanation for the strong political controversy associated with these provisions.

Suggested Citation

  • Ossa, Ralph & Staiger, Robert W. & Sykes, Alan O., 2023. "Standing in international investment and trade disputes," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:inecon:v:145:y:2023:i:c:s0022199623000776
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2023.103791
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022199623000776
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jinteco.2023.103791?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Guttorm Schjelderup & Frank Stähler, 2021. "Investor‐state dispute settlement and multinational firm behavior," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 1013-1024, September.
    2. Emma Aisbett & Larry Karp & Carol Mcausland, 2010. "Police Powers, Regulatory Takings and the Efficient Compensation of Domestic and Foreign Investors," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 86(274), pages 367-383, September.
    3. Levy, Philip I & Srinivasan, T N, 1996. "Regionalism and the (Dis)advantage of Dispute-Settlement Access," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(2), pages 93-98, May.
    4. Brainard, S Lael, 1997. "An Empirical Assessment of the Proximity-Concentration Trade-off between Multinational Sales and Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(4), pages 520-544, September.
    5. Alan O. Sykes, 2005. "Public versus Private Enforcement of International Economic Law: Standing and Remedy," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(2), pages 631-666, June.
    6. Eckhard Janeba, 2019. "Regulatory chill and the effect of investor state dispute settlements," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(4), pages 1172-1198, September.
    7. Robert W. Staiger & Alan O. Sykes, 2017. "How Important Can the Non-violation Clause Be for the GATT/WTO?," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 149-187, May.
    8. Kohler, Wilhelm & Stähler, Frank, 2019. "The economics of investor protection: ISDS versus national treatment," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    9. Konrad, Kai A., 2017. "Large investors, regulatory taking and investor-state dispute settlement," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 341-353.
    10. Elhanan Helpman & Marc J. Melitz & Stephen R. Yeaple, 2004. "Export Versus FDI with Heterogeneous Firms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 300-316, March.
    11. Giovanni Maggi & Robert W. Staiger, 2011. "The Role of Dispute Settlement Procedures in International Trade Agreements," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(1), pages 475-515.
    12. Giovanni Maggi & Robert W. Staiger, 2018. "Trade Disputes And Settlement," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 59(1), pages 19-50, February.
    13. McLaren, John, 1997. "Size, Sunk Costs, and Judge Bowker's Objection to Free Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(3), pages 400-420, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ralph Ossa & Robert W. Staiger & Alan O. Sykes, 2020. "Disputes in International Investment and Trade," NBER Working Papers 27012, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Frank Stähler, 2023. "An optimal investor-state dispute settlement mechanism," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 138(1), pages 1-16, January.
    3. Guttorm Schjelderup & Frank Stähler, 2021. "Investor‐state dispute settlement and multinational firm behavior," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 1013-1024, September.
    4. Richardson, Martin & Stähler, Frank, 2019. "International agreements, economic sovereignty and exit," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    5. Kohler, Wilhelm & Stähler, Frank, 2019. "The economics of investor protection: ISDS versus national treatment," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    6. Horn, Henrik & Tangerås, Thomas, 2021. "Economics of international investment agreements," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    7. Haufler, Andreas & Mardan, Mohammed & Schindler, Dirk, 2018. "Double tax discrimination to attract FDI and fight profit shifting: The role of CFC rules," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 25-43.
    8. Horn, Henrik & Norbäck, Pehr-Johan, 2018. "A Non-Technical Introduction to Economic Aspects of International Investment Agreements," Working Paper Series 1250, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    9. Horn, Henrik, 2018. "Investor-State vs. State-State Dispute Settlement," Working Paper Series 1248, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 20 Feb 2019.
    10. Staiger, Robert & Bagwell, Kyle & Bown, Chad, 2015. "Is the WTO Passé?," CEPR Discussion Papers 10672, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Konrad, Kai A., 2017. "Large investors, regulatory taking and investor-state dispute settlement," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 341-353.
    12. Maggi, Giovanni & Staiger, Robert W., 2020. "Learning by ruling and trade disputes," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    13. Kyle Bagwell & Chad P. Bown & Robert W. Staiger, 2016. "Is the WTO Passé?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(4), pages 1125-1231, December.
    14. Horn, Henrik, 2022. "Investment Treaty Reform when Regulatory Chill Causes Global Warming," Working Paper Series 1450, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 23 Apr 2024.
    15. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2018. "Global Firms," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(2), pages 565-619, June.
    16. Pamela Bombarda, 2016. "Firm heterogeneity and the localization of economic activities," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 95, pages 1-26, March.
    17. TANI Naoki & OGAWA Eiji, 2024. "Firms' Internationalization Decisions and Demand Learning," Discussion papers 24019, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    18. Chakraborty, Debashis & Mukherjee, Jaydeep & Lee, Jaewook, 2016. "Do FDI Inflows influence Merchandise Exports? Causality Analysis on India over 1991-2016," MPRA Paper 74851, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Horn, Henrik & Tangerås, Thomas, 2016. "Economics and Politics of International Investment Agreements," Working Paper Series 1140, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    20. Alessandro Borin & Riccardo Cristadoro, 2014. "Foreign direct investment and multinational firms," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 243, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:inecon:v:145:y:2023:i:c:s0022199623000776. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505552 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.