Mapping Private Companies' Duties in International Investment Law

Abstract

On the basis of notorious evidence of corporate misconduct and of the legal difficulty to ascertain private companies’ liability in international law, this article seeks to map such companies’ duties in international investment law. This is undertaken by perusing how this law field makes provision and room for the issue of corporate social responsibility. As such, a trend exists in recent investment agreements and also in the arbitral jurisprudence which oversees investors’ malpractices so as to, firstly, foster a culture of corporate social responsibility and to, secondly, evaluate their intrinsic legal protection. The present article maps this general direction of duly considering investors’ duties while assessing their claims and discusses the legal purpose(s) of the new reference to corporate social responsibility in international investment law.

Keywords: investors’ duties, corporate social responsibility, clean hands

JEL Classification: k33