Investment tribunals and human rights treaties: A sociological perspective

Introduction, Sociology of law involves the study of how social factors influence the development and enforcement of law. As elaborated below, sociological analysis casts a new light on a significant dimension of the relationships between different branches of international law and enriches our understanding of the social factors involved in the inclination by legal decision-makers to incorporate or reject legal rules developed in other branches of international law. This chapter aims to analyse the particular set of interactions between two branches of international law – human rights and investment treaties – from a sociocultural perspective. The basic argument of this chapter is that legal interactions between various branches of international law may also be analysed as social interactions between the relevant communities. Sociological analysis of international law begins from the premise that individuals' behaviour and normative choices are significantly affected by their social context and sociocultural factors. The sociological core assumptions regarding the influential role of social factors on individual behaviour are extended to the economic realm by economic sociology. Existing literature demonstrates that sociocultural factors (such as values and norms) influence international economic relations among states and individuals.