Investment arbitration and human rights cases in Latin America

Abstract

Investment and human rights law share some features, notably, the fact that are asymmetrical by nature, as both grant individuals rights and protection from State interference while referring virtually all treaty obligations to the State. 1 But they also have important differences. Few human rights treaties provide access to international courts, and when they do, the exhaustion of local remedies is a precondition to bring a claim. Instead, in the majority of international investment agreements (IIAs), 2 the investor often has immediate access to investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) usually under the form of arbitration, 3 a truly 'anomaly' in the general context of international law. 4 While some legal research