The Protection of Foreign Direct Investments in Developing and Emerging Markets Through the Instrumentality of Arbitration: Fair Game?

Investment treaties have tripled in the twenty-first century with over 170 countries signing onto bilateral investment treaties (BITs). Most BITs are made between a developed and a developing country, whereby a host country promises to protect home country's foreign direct investment (FDI) in exchange for the prospect of increased capital in the future.Hence, BITs tend to reduce the expected risks to FDI in that they stabilize a host country's existing investment environment, as well as provide a substitute for weak domestic laws and institutions that are often ill-equipped to protect FDI.