• If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

Bilateral Investment Treaties

Page history last edited by Anneli Sarkanen 3 months ago Saved with comment

Bilateral Investment Treaties ("BITs") can be found in the following places:

 

  • UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) has a database of BITs. Advanced search: http://investmentpolicyhub.unctad.org/IIA/AdvancedSearchBIT covers other International Investment Agreements too. See IIAs by Economy for a list of BITs and other IIAs by country which shows date in force.
  • ICSID database of bilateral investment treaties lists many BITs - giving signature date and entry into force. Full text not often available (in case link doesn't work, navigate to the database via Resources > Investment Treaties > Database of Investment Treaties) **possibly now behind a paywall? Jan 2024**
  • UN Treaty Collection - worth a look if a little cumbersome to use. Some content requires a subscription but useful. 
  • European Commission published a list of all BITs that EU member states were obligated to report on - member states were required to notify the commission in Feb 2013 on all BITs with third countries they wished to maintain in force or permit to enter into force. (OJ 2013 C 131, p2-97, 08.05.2013) 
  • ITA website (http://www.italaw.com/investment-treaties ) - can also look for cases by Treaty
  • Oxford University Press operates an online service: Investment Claims, which includes the text of over 1,200 Bilateral Investment Treaties. OUP commission country experts to gather together BITs for key jurisdictions. ï»¿Requires subscription to view BITs but information on parties names available to view
  • Electronic Database of Investment Treaties (EDIT).  "The Electronic Database of Investment Treaties (EDIT) is a new comprehensive full text database of international investment agreements (IIAs). Its goal is to facilitate informed public discourse, evidence-based reform, and academic study of the international investment regime by providing unprecedented access to the most extensive set of IIA texts to date." In cooperation with World Bank.

   

In the UK: Bilateral Investment Treaties are published as command papers you can order them the same way as any other government publication. Some of these command papers are available in full on the FCO website.

  

Paid for services: 

Other information
  • You may also be interested in the Law Society Library's Queries and Enquiries database record on BITs

Return to How do I home

Return to Conventions and treaties

Comments (3)

Anneli Sarkanen said

at 9:16 am on Nov 5, 2009

Might be of interest on this topic: Ecuador President Seeks To End Investment Protection Agreements (04.11.2009):
http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=200910281854dowjonesdjonline000871&title=ecuador-president-seeks-to-end-investment-protection-agreements

Connie Jeffery said

at 9:52 am on Aug 4, 2010

'Investment Treaty Arbitration' hosted by the California University of Victoria also has the text of some of them - http://ita.law.uvic.ca/
It's also good for finding arbitration awards.

Anneli Sarkanen said

at 8:51 am on May 13, 2014

This blog post by Slaw gives some background to BITs and also some sources of them - might be of interest to researchers of BITs: http://www.slaw.ca/2014/05/08/bit-by-bit/

You don't have permission to comment on this page.