Vadi, Valentina (2018) Heritage, Power and Destiny : The Protection of Indigenous Heritage in International Investment Law and Arbitration. George Washington International Law Review, 50 (4). pp. 725-780.
Vadi_Heritage_Power_and_Destiny.pdf - Accepted Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial.
Download (654kB)
Abstract
This Article explores the clash between investors’ rights and Indigenous peoples’ rights in international investment law and arbitration. It contributes to the existing literature by highlighting the power differentials among different state and non-state actors as well as the role of international investment law in maximizing or neutralizing such conflicts. The existing literature has shown that the protection of the rights of Indigenous peoples has increasingly intersected with the promotion of foreign investments in international investment law. However, due to the extraordinary boom of investor–state arbitrations in the past years, a comprehensive scrutiny of the relevant arbitrations and a conceptual analysis of the same is still missing. This Article aims to fill this gap in the existing literature. Not only does this Article map the most recent awards dealing with Indigenous peoples’ rights, but it also critically assesses the key importance of this jurisprudence for the development of international investment law, human rights law, and international law more generally.