International Investment Law and ISDS: Mapping Contemporary Latin America

In recent years, the negotiation and conclusion of international investment agreements (IIAs) in Latin America has gone hand-in-hand with a rethinking of investment standards and the elaboration of new IIA models. This is evident, among others, in Brazil’s cooperation and facilitation investment agreements (CFIAs), the continuing negotiations on the creation of a regional dispute settlement centre under the aegis of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), some recently-released investment policy documents and amendments to national arbitration laws for disputes involving the State. The article highlights such developments emphasising the broad spectrum of local approaches that vary from convergence to divergence in order to interpret Latin American countries’ position in the existing investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) system and reveal the role that the sub-continent can play in the future design of ISDS.