Cultural Heritage in International Investment Law and Arbitration

Valentina Vadi assesses whether cultural heritage has and/or should have any relevance in international investment law and policy.

Valentina Vadi (Author)

9781107038486, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 March 2014

374 pages
23.5 x 15.5 x 2.3 cm, 0.65 kg

'Aside from the wealth of information as well as the quality of its analysis, the book of Professor Vadi covers a gap in the relevant literature. Indeed, apart from a limited number of studies focusing on aspects of the relation between cultural heritage and international investment law, there has been no in-depth study, and the book remains the sole comprehensive contribution to the subject.' Panayotis M. Protopsaltis, Journal of International Arbitration

Can states adopt protectionist cultural policies? What are the limits, if any, to state intervention in cultural matters? A wide variety of cultural policies may interfere with foreign investments, and a tension therefore exists between the cultural policies of the host state and investment treaty provisions. In some cases, foreign investors have claimed that cultural policies have negatively affected their investments, thereby amounting to a breach of the relevant investment treaty. This study maps the relevant investor-state arbitrations concerning cultural elements and shows that arbitrators have increasingly taken cultural concerns into consideration in deciding cases brought before them, eventually contributing to the coalescence of general principles of law demanding the protection of cultural heritage.

1. Cultural heritage in international law
2. International investment law
3. The World Heritage and foreign direct investment
4. Underwater cultural heritage and foreign direct investment
5. Cultural diversity, intangible heritage and foreign direct investment
6. Indigenous cultural heritage and foreign direct investment
7. Investing in culture.

Subject Areas: Arbitration, mediation & alternative dispute resolution [LNAC5], Public international law [LBB], Law [L], Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC], Anthropology [JHM]