Approaches to Foreign Direct Investment in Legal Research
published in Markus Krajewski and Rhea T Hofmann (eds), Research Handbook on Foreign Direct Investment (Edward Elgar 2019) ch 2
Amsterdam Law School Research Paper No. 2019-19
Amsterdam Center for International Law No. 2019-08
35 Pages Posted: 20 Dec 2019
Date Written: December 19, 2019
Abstract
This paper provides a critical introduction to the approaches taken in legal research to address issues relating to foreign direct investment (FDI). It starts from a broad understanding of legal approaches to FDI, as encompassing substance and procedure under both national and international law. On this basis, it provides an overview of the legal regimes governing FDI, analyses the core conceptualizations of the field in legal scholarship and investment law practice, and offers an introduction to methods of legal research relating to FDI. For this purpose, the paper proposes that the complex legal architecture governing FDI, which is based on a multitude of applicable legal instruments under domestic and international law, and involved a diverse set of actors using them in order to shape international investment relations, FDI regulation is best understood as a transnational legal order. On the basis of this approach, the paper then concentrates on the international legal aspects of FDI regulation and provides a typology of research questions that can be asked in IIL and gives an overview of methods of legal research used to tackle them.
Keywords: international investment law, investor-state dispute settlement, international investment agreements, transnational law, transnational legal order, legal research, doctrinal approaches, empirical legal studies, critical legal studies, research methods
JEL Classification: K33
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation