The Evolving International Investment Regime Expectations, Realities, Options

With the growth of the global economy over the past two decades, foreign direct investment (FDI) laws, at both the national and international levels, have undergone rapid development in order to strengthen the protection standards for foreign investors. In terms of international investment law, a network of international investment agreements has arisen as a way to address FDI growth. FDI backlash, reflective of more restrictive regulation, has also emerged. The Evolving International Investment Regime analyzes the existing challenges to the international investment regime, and addresses these challenges going forward. It also examines the dynamics of the international regime, as well as a broader view of the changing global economic reality both in the United States and in other countries. The content for the book is a compendium of articles by leading thinkers, originating from the International Investment Conference "What's New in International Investment Law and Policy?"

Jose E. Alvarez is the Herbert and Rose Rubin Professor of International Law at New York University Law School. At NYU he teaches courses on international law, foreign investment, and international organizations. He is also serving as special adviser to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on a pro bono basis. Professor Alvarez was formerly the Hamilton Fish Professor of International Law and Diplomacy and the executive director of the Center on Global Legal Problems at Columbia Law School, a professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School, an associate professor at the George Washington University's National Law Center, and an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law Center. Prior to entering academia in 1989, Professor Alvarez was an attorney adviser with the Office of the Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State where he worked on cases before the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal, served on the negotiation teams for bilateral investment treaties and the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, and was legal adviser to the administration of justice program in Latin America coordinated by the Agency of International Development. Professor Alvarez has also been in private practice and was a judicial clerk to the late Hon. Thomas Gibbs Gee of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. He served as President of the American Society of International Law from 2006-08. His recently concluded set of lectures at The Hague Academy of International Law, concerning the public international law governing international investment, are expected to be published in book form in late 2010. Prof. Alvarez's book, International Organizations as Law-Makers, was published in paperback in 2006. He was educated at Harvard College, Harvard Law School, and Oxford University.

Karl P. Sauvant is the Executive Director of the Columbia Program on International Investment, Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School and Special Advisor to the UN Millennium Project. He is also Guest Professor at Nankai University, China.

Until July 2005, he was Director of UNCTAD's Division on Investment, Technology and Enterprise Development (DITE), the focal point in the UN system for matters related to foreign direct investment (FDI) and technology, as well as a major interface with the private sector. While at the UN, he created (in 1991) the prestigious annual United Nations publication the World Investment Report, of which he was the lead author until 2005, and (in 1992) the journal Transnational Corporations, serving as its editor. He provided intellectual leadership and guidance to a series of 25 monographs on key issues related to international investment agreements (which were published in 2004/05 in three volumes), and he edited (together with John Dunning) a 20-volume Library on Transnational Corporations (published by Routledge).

Dr. Sauvant joined the United Nations in 1973 and, as of 1975, has focused his work on matters related to FDI. Since 1988, he was responsible for the Organization's policy analysis work on FDI. In 2001, he became Director of DITE. His responsibilities included managing the Division; promoting international consensus-building in the areas of FDI, technology and enterprise development; providing intellectual leadership for policy-oriented research; and conceptualizing and supervising technical assistance activities in this field.

Apart from his work for the United Nations, he has published extensively on issues related to economic development, FDI and services. His name is associated with some 150 United Nations publications on FDI over the past three decades.

Dr. Sauvant received a Ph.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He is a national of Germany.