Legal Frameworks for the Protection of Foreign Investment in Times of Armed Conflict

Abstract

This chapter presents three legal frameworks which provide foreign investors protections against effects of armed conflict: the law of state responsibility for injuries to foreigners under customary international law, international humanitarian law, and international human rights law. Particularly influential were the customary rules on the treatment of aliens, shaped by the disagreements between developed and developing countries, and clarified through the case law of mixed claims commissions and arbitrations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The chapter explains how the rules on protection of property in times of armed conflict have evolved, how they have been interpreted across different legal regimes, and discusses similarities and differences, thus setting the scene for the examination of investment treaty law in the subsequent chapters.