INTRODUCTION Although they date back to the post-war period, Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) peaked in the 1990s, when a boom in bilateral and regional Free Trade Agreements (FTAs)4 was recorded. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, a “new world order” emerged through the liberalization of markets and a set of rules known as the “Washington Consensus.” During the same period, an international trade regime was established with the emergence of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1994. Since WTO rules must be negotiated and agreed upon multilaterally by all member countries through processes that naturally slow down negotiations on agreements and make them more difficult, the trading powers United States and the European Union, but not only them, chose to go ahead and propose bilateral and regional free trade and/or investment treaties5. There are currently 2,924 BITs in force in the world, as well as 358 other International Investment Treaties (IIAs)6. The figure below shows the evolution of IIAs in recent decades.
A Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) is an agreement between two countries for promoting and protecting investments by companies from the respective countries in each other’s territory.
4 - The first BIT was signed between Germany and Pakistan in 1959. In the 1980s, there were approximately 400 treaties in force, a number that soared to approximately 1,800 in the 1990s (Guiotto, 2010). 5 - In the Americas, we had the North American Free Trade Agreement, known as NAFTA, and negotiations on the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Other trans-regional agreements were signed recently, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the USA and the European Union. 6 - According to UNCTAD, a Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) is an agreement between two countries designed to promote and protect investments made by investors from the respective countries in each other´s territory. The large majority of International Investment Agreements (IIAs) are BITs. The IIA category includes the BITs, Free Trade Agreements (FTA) and other treaties containing structuring clauses on investment. See “Terminology” at investmentpolicyhub.unctad.org/IIA/
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