The 'object and purpose' and incrementalism of investment treaties: can international investment law reinvent its identity?

This paper explains the shift in international policies on the treaty framework for foreign investment protection towards further clarity, specificity and inclusivity. It provides a tour d'horizon on how the investor and investment protection-centrism in investment law is giving way a multi-faceted object and purpose that takes into account public interests and interests of third parties. It chiefly argues that in light of their provisions concerning environment, health, general public interest, sustainable development, labor rights as well as investor obligations and responsibilities, new generation IIAs are increasingly becoming informed political-legal declarations. The emerging tendencies and patterns in treaty and policymaking indicate that unqualified, ambiguous international protections extended to foreign investors by earlier generation IIAs will give way to more and more inclusive IIAs assertive in their objective of protecting public interest goals.