Professor published in book on investment protection standards

Professor Elizabeth Whitsitt has published the chapter "International Investment Law's Non-Discrimination Norms and the Rule of Law" in Investment Protection Standards and the Rule of Law, edited by August Reinisch and Stephan W. Schill.

The book examines to what extent the substantive standards of treatment can be understood as expressions of the rule of law. Secondly, it addresses the rule-of-law problems, or rule-of-law lacunae, that exist in, or are created by, the application of these standards. 

Professor Whitsitt's chapter considers how most favoured nation (MFN) and national treatment (NT) disciplines promote foreign investors having an equal opportunity to compete in the global marketplace through transposition of Ronald Dworkin’s theory about the rule of law to international investment law. It examines the constituent elements of MFN and NT disciplines commonly found in bilateral international investment treaties (BITs) and regional trade agreements (RTAs) and the jurisprudence interpreting these requirements in relation to the rule of law. Regardless of variations in the scope of MFN and NT clauses across the numerous BITs and RTAs currently in force, such provisions along with their constituent elements remain at their core equality doctrines that ground the rules of fair play and justice in the international investment law regime and thus further the rule of law.