BITing Land Abroad: The Anti-Redistributive Impact of Bilateral Investment Agreements
43 Pages Posted: 25 Jul 2013 Last revised: 29 Aug 2013
Date Written: July 24, 2013
Abstract
In this paper, I scrutinize the relationship between the some 3,000 BITs which have been concluded by now throughout the world, access to land and the plurality of proprietary regimes. In particular, I underlines three negative effects of the post-colonial system of investment law: It increases the bargaining power of investors nad facilitate the ongoing global land grabbing; it consolidates a proprietary regime based on private accumulation and public dispossession (included that of colonial origin); and in harnessing the possibility of a wide and effective land reform. In this light, governments and citizens have to understand the time and spacial effects of these bilateral international agreements, and the imminent need for a bold delink from a system that reinforces inequalities by prioritizing the economic rights of the investors to the rights and needs of people.
Keywords: land grabbing, bilateral investment treaties, investment arbitration, land reform, redistribution, sovereignty
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