Investment Treaties and the Rule of Law Promise in Asia

Wednesday, February 9, 2022
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM (Eastern Daylight Time)

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About the Event

Investment treaties are said to improve the rule of law in states that enter into them by causing the states to internalize the obligations contained in the treaties. N. Jansen Calamita and Ayelet Berman unpack this theory and present the first empirical study of the internalization of investment treaties in eight Asian states in their forthcoming book, Investment Treaties and the Rule of Law Promise: The Internalisation of International Commitments in Asia (Cambridge University Press). In their talk, they will discuss an analytical framework for thinking about the internalization of international commitments in governmental decision-making and identify factors that affect this process in Asia.

About the speakers

Dr. Ayelet Berman is lead for Global Health Law & Governance Program and senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Centre for International Law (CIL) and an adjunct assistant professor at the NUS Faculty of Law. Her work focuses on global regulation and governance, global health law, international investment law, and international trade law. Previously, she was a research fellow at the Centre for Trade and Economic Integration at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva and visiting professor of law at the University of Lausanne. She is the co-chair of the American Society of International Law’s International Organizations Interest Group, an executive board member of Tradelab, a global network of international economic law clinics, and a member of the OECD Partnership for Effective International Rule-Making by International Organisations, an academic advisory group. Dr. Berman also practiced international trade law at Sidley Austin LLP in Geneva.

N. Jansen Calamita is head of the Investment Law and Policy Programme in the Centre for International Law (CIL) at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He is also research associate professor in the NUS Faculty of Law. He previously was director of the Investment Treaty Forum at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law. He has held posts on the law faculties of the University of Oxford and the University of Birmingham. He has served in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the US Department of State and in the UN Office of Legal Affairs in the UNCITRAL Secretariat. He is on the board of editors of the Yearbook of International Investment Law & Policy and is series co-editor (with Loretta Malintoppi) of International Litigation in Practice (Brill). He has published widely on investment treaty law and policy. He continues to advise governments and international organizations on matters relating to international investment law and dispute resolution.