Like import and export restrictions discussed in Chapter 2, energy subsidies also have environmental implications. The IEA defines ‘energy subsidy’ as ‘any government action that concerns primarily the energy sector that lowers the cost of energy production, raises the price received by energy producers or lowers the price paid by energy consumers’. Such subsidies are granted to promote energy security, employment and economic growth, innovation as well as social and/or environmental goals. Energy subsidies are subject to WTO disciplines. Removing fossil fuel subsidies will help reduce fossil CO2 emissions to the levels necessary to contain global warming and improve public health by cutting pre-mature global air pollution deaths by more than half. By contrast, providing subsidies for renewable energy can advance a climate-friendly policy of diversifying and decarbonizing national energy systems. Thus, the energy–environment nexus here centres on the issues of eliminating harmful fossil fuel subsidies, on the one hand, and exploring policy flexibilities for renewable energy subsidies, on the other.

Chapter 6 provides a critical evaluation of the new rules on SOEs developed in international trade and investment agreements, with the CPTPP as the leading example. Despite its reputation as a ’twenty-first century high-standard trade agreement’, we argue that the SOE rules in the CPTPP do not add much to the existing rules in the WTO and are less rigorous than China’s WTO-plus obligations discussed in Chapter 5. This chapter then examines some major post-CPTPP trade and investment agreements with significant rules on SOEs, including the EU–Japan FTA, the EU–Vietnam FTA, the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) and the CAI. As one of China’s latest international agreements, the CAI is also the first treaty where China agreed to SOE rules outside the WTO. Again, the main substantive obligation here – the one on commercial considerations – simply repeats the existing obligation in China’s WTO accession package. While all of the FTAs discussed in this chapter should be praised for setting new and higher standards of transparency, they do not resolve the longstanding problem of enforcement – the most challenging issue under the WTO’s transparency regime.

The role of third-party politeness, in the sense of (im)politeness that pertains not (primarily) to the face of the addressee but is aimed at the face of a third party, has not received much attention in politeness studies, but plays an important role in public interaction in the Late Roman Republic. Both in private letters, which often circulated in a wider circle, and in speeches we find courtesies to or critical remarks about ‘others’ that were clearly meant to be heard or read by the persons involved. As such, third-party politeness appears to have been one of the complicated ways in which the Roman elite maintained and shaped their social relations. After a brief discussion of the various forms of third-party politeness, three case studies, concerning Cicero’s relations with Vatinius, Appius and Dolabella, serve as a first exploration of the phenomenon. It turns out that third-party politeness can be used to fulfil the same interpersonal functions which were discussed by Hall (2009) with regard to addressee-oriented politeness, viz. affiliative politeness, politeness of respect and compensation for FTAs.

Chapter 9 attempts to apply the normative findings of this book to new-generation FTAs concluded by the EU, primarily to CETA. The analysis is based on the data gathered during the discussions with officials involved in the negotiation of these agreements. The study explains how the new FTAs establish primacy of procedural rules which place the EU at the forefront of dispute resolution. Finally, this study proposes some critical questions with the aim of opening further debate on the policy implications of functional international responsibility.

The rules governing the conduct of host States with regards to foreign investors – and, in some instances, which govern the conduct of foreign investors themselves and that of home States – as well as those rules which govern investor–State dispute settlement are largely to be found in international law sources. For that reason, Chapter 2 focuses on the sources of international law as they relate to international investment law and arbitration. In line with the classical dichotomy adopted in public international law as it is reflected in Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice, it provides an analysis of the primary and subsidiary sources of international investment law and arbitration as well as the interplay between them. As forming part of primary sources, it examines international investment agreements (bilateral investment treaties and free trade agreements containing an investment chapter), customary international law and general principles of law recognised by civilised nations. As regards subsidiary sources, Chapter 2 discusses arbitral awards and the teaching of publicists. In addition to the primary and subsidiary sources of international investment law and arbitration, it also examines the role played by equity and soft law instruments in this field of law.

International investment law and arbitration has a long history dating back to the nineteenth century. It has since developed and adapted following the political and societal forces at work both domestically and internationally. The balance between the interests of developing States and developed States and, more fundamentally, between public and private interests have played a key role in this process. It can be seen that the balance struck between these interests at different periods of time explains to a large extent the evolutive features of this field of law. This holds true with regards to the set of rules governing both the relations of foreign investors with the States in which they invest and the settlement of the disputes between them.

To make sense of this evolution and for the purpose of contextualising the analysis of international investment law and arbitration provided in the textbook, Chapter 1 distinguishes between three key stages in its history and analyses the respective societal context and legal features pertaining to each. These stages are: (1) the origin of international investment law and arbitration; (2) its emergence as a proper field of international law; and (3) the rise and then crisis this field of law has known since the 1990s.

After three decades of companionship, investment protection rules and trade agreements are heading for a divorce. Investment chapters have been included in preferential trade and investment agreements (PTIAs) since the late 1980s, but they have recently come under fire. The U.S. administration considers privately enforceable investment protection obligations as an unwanted incentive to offshore American jobs, and the EU Commission seeks to omit them to benefit from the accelerated ratification process reserved for trade agreements that fall under exclusive EU competency. After decades of coexistence, investment protection rules and trade agreements are thus likely to go their separate ways. This chapter empirically evaluates the impact of their thirty-year companionship to assess the implications of their looming split. It finds that investment chapters remain little more than a bilateral investment treaty plugged into a trade agreement. PTIAs and self-standing investment treaties do not vary systematically in investment protection content, and the wider trade agreement context does little to affect the interpretation of investment rules in PTIAs. In spite of their coexistence in the same treaty, there is thus little evidence of cross-fertilization between trade and investment protection rules in PTIAs. This absence of normative convergence suggests that their looming split merely formalizes the continuous normative distinction between trade liberalization and investment protection.

After three decades of companionship, investment protection rules and trade agreements are heading for a divorce. Investment chapters have been included in preferential trade and investment agreements (PTIAs) since the late 1980s, but they have recently come under fire. The U.S. administration considers privately enforceable investment protection obligations as an unwanted incentive to offshore American jobs, and the EU Commission seeks to omit them to benefit from the accelerated ratification process reserved for trade agreements that fall under exclusive EU competency. After decades of coexistence, investment protection rules and trade agreements are thus likely to go their separate ways. This chapter empirically evaluates the impact of their thirty-year companionship to assess the implications of their looming split. It finds that investment chapters remain little more than a bilateral investment treaty plugged into a trade agreement. PTIAs and self-standing investment treaties do not vary systematically in investment protection content, and the wider trade agreement context does little to affect the interpretation of investment rules in PTIAs. In spite of their coexistence in the same treaty, there is thus little evidence of cross-fertilization between trade and investment protection rules in PTIAs. This absence of normative convergence suggests that their looming split merely formalizes the continuous normative distinction between trade liberalization and investment protection.