Who Cares about regulatory space in BITs? A comparative international approach

Regulatory space has become one of the buzzwords of the debate on international investment protection law. Critics claim that investment law unduly constrains states’ regulatory space. Proponents contest that claim. This chapter analyzes state sensitivity to constraints on regulatory space from a comparative perspective, on the basis of quantitative analysis of textual coding of investor-state dispute settlement provisions in renegotiated bilateral investment treaties. The chapter is comprised of six sections. Section I is an introduction covering the impact of investor-state dispute settlement on state regulatory space. Section II discusses bilateral treaty-making and comparative international law research. Section III describes the comparative landscape of renegotiated BITs, and Section IV provides a comparative BIT content analysis and SRS. Section V sets forth a comparative empirical analysis of ISDS provisions. Section VI presents conclusions.