Workshop: Preferential Trade and Investment Agreements: A New Ordering Paradigm for International Investment Relations?

For a couple of years, the Frankfurt Investment Law Workshop has been a forum to discuss conceptual issues of international investment law. Previous workshops focused on International Investment Law and General International Law: From Clinical Isolation to Systemic Integration? (Nomos 2011) and International Investment Law and Its Others (forthcoming 2012). This year’s workshop will explore the growing network of preferential trade and investment agreements (PTIAs) and assess their impact on ordering international investment relations. It will be held in Frankfurt/Main, on March 16-17, 2012, immediately following the Frankfurt Investment Arbitration Moot. The event is designed to be a forum for discussion. Those interested in participating should contact Mrs. Sabine Schimpf, Merton Centre for European Integration and International Economic Order, University of Frankfurt, RuW, Grüneburgplatz 1, 60323 Frankfurt am Main, Germany (S.Schimpf[at]jur.uni-frankfurt.de) by February 28, 2012. Here's the program:

Preferential Trade and Investment Agreements: A New Ordering Paradigm for International Investment Relations?

– Frankfurt Investment Law Workshop 2012 –

Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main

Campus Westend

16 and 17 March 2012

International investment law no longer exclusively consists of self-standing international investment protection treaties, but increasingly comprises preferential trade and investment agreements (PTIAs) that integrate investment protection and investment liberalization with rules on trade in goods and services. The 2012 Frankfurt Investment Law Workshop will explore the impact of this new form of investment agreement as an ordering paradigm for international investment relations and for international investment law. Do PTIAs break with the substance and rationale of bilateral investment treaties, or do they constitute their logical continuation? How do PTIAs relate to the debate about bilateralism and multilateralism in international investment law? What are the repercussions of combining matters related to trade and investment in a single instrument? How do PTIAs relate to the phenomenon of regionalism in international economic law? Will they lead to a more harmonious universe of international economic law or will they increase fragmentation and conflict? Presentations at the conference will address these and other crucial issues, and by doing so provide a clearer understanding of PTIAs as an instrument of ordering international investment relations.

Friday, 16 March 2012

20.00 Welcome Reception and Buffet

Keynote Address

Preferential Trade and Investment Agreements - A Practitioner’s Perspective

Raúl Emilio Vinuesa (Universidad de Buenos Aires)

Saturday, 17 March 2012

09.00 Opening Remarks & General Introduction

Rainer Hofmann (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main) and Stephan Schill (Max Planck Institut Heidelberg)

9.30 Preferential Trade and Investment Agreements and the Bilateralism/Multilateralism Divide

Andreas Ziegler (Université de Lausanne)

Comments by Irmgard Marboe (Universität Wien) and Peter Muchlinski (School of Oriental and African Studies London) [tbc]

Discussion

– Coffee break –

11.00 Co-existence and Conflict: Interaction between Preferential Trade and Investment Agreements and the BIT World

Eric de Brabandere (Universiteit Leiden)

Comments by Christina Binder (Universität Wien) and Marc Jacob (Max Planck Institut Heidelberg)

Discussion

– Lunch break –

14.00 Preferential Trade and Investment Agreements and the Trade/Investment Divide

Freya Baetens (Universiteit Leiden)

Comments by Tillmann Rudolf Braun (Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Berlin) and Jorge Albites-Bedoya (Herfurth & Partner, Hannover)

Discussion

– Coffee break –

15.30 Preferential Trade and Investment Agreements and Regionalism

Marc Bungenberg (Universität Siegen/Université de Lausanne)

Comments by Anna Joubin-Bret (Foaley Hoag, Paris) and David Gaukrodger (OECD, Paris)

Discussion

17.00 Concluding Remarks

Christian J. Tams (University of Glasgow)