Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T16:53:01.563Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Investment Rules and the New Constitutionalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

David Schneiderman
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The new model for economic and political renovation mandates the entrenchment, beyond the reach of majoritarian control, of rules for the free movement of transnational capital. This “new constitutionalism” removes key aspects of economic life from the influence of domestic politics within nation states. A manifestation of this new orthodoxy is the network of bilateral investment treaties designed to ensure foreign investors security from “discrimination” and “expropriation,” and conferring standing on investors to sue in the event that their investment interests are impaired. This paper examines the agency of the state in promoting this self-binding regime of investment rules and its potential impact on domestic constitutional regimes. Of particular concern here are constitutional arrangements that protect property, such as that recently enacted in the Republic of South Africa, that deviate from the norms expressed in the transnational investment-rules regime.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , Summer 2000 , pp. 757 - 787
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2000 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adler, Glenn. 1996. Global Restructuring and Labor: The Case of the South African Union Movement. In Globalization: Critical Reflections, ed. Mittleman, James. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Reiner Publishers.Google Scholar
African National Congress (ANC). 1995. Preliminary Submission on Land Rights, 10 September.Google Scholar
Association of Law Societies of the Republic of South Africa (ALSSA). 1995. Submission by the Association of Law Societies on Section 28 and other Property Clauses Contained in South Africa's Interim Constitution, 12 May.Google Scholar
Bakan, Joel, Ryder, Bruce, Young, Margot, and Schneiderman, David. 1995. Developments in Constitutional Law: The 1993–;94 Term. Supreme Court Law Review, 2 ed., 6:67–126.Google Scholar
Beaufort Wijnholds, J. Onno de, and Hoodguin, Lex. 1994. Central Bank Autonomy: Policy Issues . In A Framework for Monetary Stability, ed. Onno de Beaufort Wijnholds, J., Sylvester Eijffinger, C. W., and Lex Hoodguin, H., 74–95. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.Google Scholar
Block, Fred. 1987. Revising State Theory: Essays in Politics and Postindustrialism. Philadelphia, Pa: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Bohman, James. 1996. Public Deliberation: Pluralism, Complexity, and Democracy. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Bordo, Michael D., and Finn Kydland, E. 1996. The Gold Standard as Commitment Mechanism . In Modern Perspectives on the Gold Standard, ed. Bayoumi, Tamim Eichengreen, Barry, and Mark, Taylor P., 55–100. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brownlie, Ian. 1995. International Law at the Fiftieth Anniversary of the United Nations: General Course on Public International Law. Recueil des cours 255:9–228. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.Google Scholar
Canada. 1968. Report of the Task Force on the Structure of Canadian Industry. Foreign Ownership and the Structure of Canadian Industry. Ottawa: Privy Council Office.Google Scholar
Canada, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (CDFAIT). 1994. Press Release.Google Scholar
Canada, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (CDFAIT). 1998a. Visit to Canada by Nelson Mandela, President of South Africa, September 24–;25, 1998: Background Information.Google Scholar
Canada, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (CDFAIT). 1998b. Trade and Economic Analysis Division. Developments in Canada's Trade and Foreign Investment in 1997 .Google Scholar
Cánovas, Antonio Garza. 1992. Introductory Note. International Legal Materials 31:390.Google Scholar
Chaskalson, Matthew. 1995. The Property Clause: Section 28 of the Constitution. South African Journal on Human Rights 9:131–39.Google Scholar
Chow, Franklin. 1994. Recent Trends in Canadian Direct Investment Abroad: The Rise of Canadian Multinationals . In Canadian-Based Multinationals, ed. Globerman, Steven, 35–62. Calgary, Alberta: University of Calgary Press.Google Scholar
COSATU. 199697. The Social Clause. Shopsteward 5(5)(December-January). http://www.cosatu.org.za/shop/shop0508.htm/THE SOCIAL CLAUSE.Google Scholar
Cox, Robert. 1992. Global Perestroika. In Approaches to World Order, ed. Robert Cox, W. and Timothy Sinclair, J. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Daly, Justine. 1994. Has Mexico Crossed the Border on State Responsibility for Economic Injury to Aliens? Foreign Investment and the Calvo Clause in Mexico after NAFTA. St. Mary's Law Journal 25:1147–93.Google Scholar
Dezalay, Yves, and Bryant Garth, G. 1996. Dealing in Virtue: International Commercial Arbitration and the Construction of a Transnational Legal Order. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Doern, G. Bruce, and Brian Tomlin, W. 1991. Faith and Fear: The Free Trade Story. Toronto, Ontario: Stoddart.Google Scholar
Dolzer, Rudolf. 1986. Indirect Expropriation of Alien Property. ICSID Review 1:41.Google Scholar
Dolzer, Rudolf, and Stevens, Margarete. 1995. Bilateral Investment Treaties. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.Google Scholar
Eichengreen, Barry. 1996. Globalizing Capital: A History of the International Monetary System. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Elster, Jon. 1984. Ulysses and the Sirens: Studies in Rationality and Irrationality. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Elster, Jon. 1992. Intemporal Choice and Political Thought . In Choice Over Time, ed. Lowenstein, George and Elster, Jon. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Fatouros, A. A. 1996. Towards an International Agreement on Foreign Direct Investment? In OECD Documents 1996, 47–67.Google Scholar
Financial Post. 1997. Multilateral Investment Pact Serves Canada's Interests, 7 November, p. 16.Google Scholar
Garcia-Mora, Manuel R. 1950. The Calvo Clause in Latin American Constitutions and International Law. Marquette Law Review 33:205–19.Google Scholar
Gill, Stephen. 1995. Globalisation, Market Civilisation, and Disciplinary Neoliberalism Millenium: Journal of International Studies 24:399–423.Google Scholar
Globe and Mail. 1994. U.S. Firms Considers Pearson Challenge, 20 July.Google Scholar
Globe and Mail. 1998. PCB Export Ban Breached NAFTA, Firm Says, 1 September.Google Scholar
Hawthorn, Geoffrey. 1995. The Crises of Southern States . In Contemporary Crisis of the Nation State? ed. Dunn, John, 130–45. Oxford, U.K: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Held, David. 1995. Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Government. Cambridge, England: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Herdegen, Matthias. 1994. Maastricht and the German Constitutional Court: Constitutional Restraints fur an “Ever Closer Union. Common Market Law Review 31:235–49.Google Scholar
Higgins, Rosalyn. 1982. The Taking of Property by the State: Recent Developments in International Law. Recueil des Cours 176:259–389. The Hague: Martinus Nijhof.Google Scholar
Hirschman, Albert O. 1945. National Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Hirst, Paul, and Thompson, Graham. 1996. Globalization in Question: The International Economy and the Possibilities of Governance. Cambridge, England: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Holmes, Stephen. 1988. Precommitment and the Paradox of Democracy . In Constitutionalism and Democracy, ed. Elster, Jon and Slagstad, Rune. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Huerta, Carla, and Lujambio, Alonso. 1994. NAFTA: Recent Constitutional Amendments, Sovereignty Today, and the Future of Federalism in Mexico. Constitutional Forum 563–67.Google Scholar
Jessop, Bob. 1990. State Theory: Putting the Capitalist State in Its Place. Cambridge, England: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Khalil, Mohammed I. 1993. Treatment of Foreign Investment in Bilateral Investment Treaties. In Shihata 1993, 221–65.Google Scholar
Lipsey, Richard G., Schwanen, Daniel, and Ronald Wonnacott, J. 1993. Inside or Outside the NAFTA? The Consequences of Canada's Choice. C. D. Howe Institute Commentary 4(June).Google Scholar
Lusztig, Michael. 1996. Risking Free Trade. Pittsburgh, Pa: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Machipisa, Lewis. 1998. Trade Rules Must Also Help Africa, Warns Mandela. Electronic Mail and Guardian , May, pp. 2–20.Google Scholar
Mapp, Wayne. 1993. The Iran-United States Claims Tribunal: The First Ten Years. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Marshall, Don D. 1996. National Development and the Globalisation Discourse: Confronting “Imperative” and “Convergence” Notions. Third World Quarterly 17:875–901.Google Scholar
Maxfield, Sylvia. 1997. Gatekeepers of Growth: The International Political Economy of Central Banking in Developing Countries. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Minor, Michael. 1994. The Demise of Expropriation as an Instrument of LDC Policy 1980–;92. Journal of International Business Studies 25(1):177–88.Google Scholar
Monahan, Patrick. 1994. In Canada, Senate, Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, no. 12, 27 October:6–12:44.Google Scholar
Mouri, Allahayar. 1994. The International Law of Expropriation as Refkcted in the Work of the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff.Google Scholar
Mulchinski, Peter. 1995. Multinational Enterprises and the Law. Oxford, G.B.: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Mulchinski, Peter. 1997. “Global Bukowina” Examined: Viewing the Multinational Enterprise as a Transnational Law-Making Community. In Teubner 1997, 79–108.Google Scholar
Murphy, Ewell E. Jr. 1995. Access and Protection of Foreign Investment in Mexico under Mexico's New Foreign Investment Law and the North American Free Trade Agreement. ISCID Review—Foreign Investment Law Journal 10:54–97.Google Scholar
Murphy, John. 1995. Property Rights and Judicial Restraint: A Reply to Chaskalson. South African Journal on Human Rights 9:385–98.Google Scholar
Niosi, Jorge. 1994. Foreign Direct Investment in Canada. In Multinationals in North America, ed. Eden, Lorraine, 367–88. Calgary, Alberta: University of Calgary Press.Google Scholar
OECD Documents. 1996. Towards Multilateral Investment Rules. Paris: OECD.Google Scholar
Panitch, Leo. 1996a. Globalization, States, and Left Strategies. Social Justice 23:79–90.Google Scholar
Panitch, Leo. 1996b. Rethinking the Role of the State. In Globalization: Critical Reflections, ed. Mittelman, James. International Political Economy Yearbook, vol. 9. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Reiner Publishers.Google Scholar
Parra, Antonio R. 1996. The Scope of New Investment Laws and International Instruments. In Pritchard 1996, 27–44.Google Scholar
Paterson, Robert K., Martine, M. N. Brand, with Jock Finlayson, A. and Jeffrey Thomas, S. 1994. International Trade and Investment Law in Canada, 2d ed. Scarborough, Ontario: Carswell.Google Scholar
Petersmann, Ernst-Ulrich. 1991a. Constitutional Functions and Constitutional Problem of International Economic Law. Fribourg, Switzerland: University Press.Google Scholar
Petersmann, Ernst-Ulrich. 1991b. Constitutionalism, Constitutional Law, and European Integration. Aussenwirtschaft 46:247–80.Google Scholar
Petersmann, Ernst-Ulrich. 1992. National Constitutions, Foreign Trade Policy, and European Community Law. European Journal of International Law 3:1–35.Google Scholar
Posner, Richard. 1987. The Constitution as Economic Document. George Washington Law Review 56:4–38.Google Scholar
Pritchard, Robert ed. 1996. Economic Development, Foreign Investment, and the Law. London: Kluwer and IBA.Google Scholar
Przeworski, Adam. 1991. Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Robinson, Ian. 1993. Neo-Conservative Trade Policy and Canadian Federalism: Constitutional Reform by Other Means. In Canada: The State of the Federation 1993, ed. Brown, D. M. Kingston, Ontario: Institute for Intergovernmental Relations.Google Scholar
Rotstein, Abraham. 1972. Development and Dependence. In Independence: The Canadian Challenge, ed. Rotstein, Abraham and Lax, Gary, 29–39. Toronto, Ontario: Committee for an Independent Canda.Google Scholar
Ruigrock, Winfried, and van Tulder, Rob. 1995. The Logic of International Restructuring. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sally, Razeen. 1994. Multinational Enterprises, Political Economy, and Institutional Theory: Domestic Embededdness in the Context of Internationalisation. Review of International Political Economy 1:161–92.Google Scholar
Sandrino, Gloria. 1994. The NAKA Investment Chapter and Foreign Direct Investment in Mexico: A Third World Perspective. Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 27:259–327.Google Scholar
Santos, Boaventura de Sousa Santos. 1995. Toward a New Common Sense: Law, Science, and Politics in the Paradigmatic Transition. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sauvé, Pierre. 1996. Market Access Through Market Presence: New Directions in investment Rulemaking. In Sauvé and Schwanen 1996, 26–35.Google Scholar
Sauvé, Pierre, and Schwanen, Daniel, eds. 1996. Investment Rules for the Global Economy: Enhancing and Access to Markets. Toronto, Ontario: C. D. Howe Institute.Google Scholar
Schneiderman, David. 1996. NAFTA's Takings Rule: American Constitutionalism Comes to Canada. University of Toronto Law Journal 46:499–537.Google Scholar
Schneiderman, David. 1999a. MMT Promises: How the Ethyl Corporation Beat the Federal Ban. Encompass Magazine 3(3) February: 12–13.Google Scholar
Schneiderman, David. 1999b. The Constitutional Strictures of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment. Good Society 9(2):90–95.Google Scholar
Schneiderman, David. Forthcoming. Constitutional Approaches to Privatization: An Inquiry into the Magnitude of Neo-Liberal Constitutionalism. Law and Contemporary Problems .Google Scholar
Schwanen, Daniel. 1996. Investment and the Global Economy: Key Issues in Rulemaking. In Sawé and Schwanen 1996, 1–25.Google Scholar
Scoffield, Heather. 1998 Time Says Copps Misses Boat on Magazine Bill. Globe and Mail, 18 November, B9.Google Scholar
Senate of Canada. 1995. Report of the Special Committee on the Pearson Airport Agreements. Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada.Google Scholar
Shihata, Ibrahim F. I. 1993. Legal Treatment of Foreign Investment: The World Bank Guidelines. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.Google Scholar
Shihata, Ibrahim F. I. 1994. Recent Trends Relating to Entry of Foreign Direct Investment. ICSID Review—Foreign Investment Law Journal 9:47–70.Google Scholar
Skocpol, Theda. 1985. Bringing the State Back In: Strategies of Analysis in Current Research. In Bringing the State Back in, ed. Peter Evans, B., Rueschemeyer, Dietrich, and Skocpol, Theda. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Wesley R. 1992. Salinas Prepares Mexican Agriculture for Free Trade. Mexico Trade and Law Reporter 10:7.Google Scholar
Sornarajah, M. 1994. The International Law on Foreign Investment. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sornarajah, M. 1997. Power and Justice in Foreign Investment Arbitration. Journal of International Arbitration 14:103–40.Google Scholar
Statistics Canada. 1997. Canada's International Investment Position, 1992 to 1996. Ottawa: Minister of Industry.Google Scholar
Strange, Susan. 1995. The Defective State. Daedulus 124(2):55–75.Google Scholar
Teubner, Gunther. 1997. ‘Global Bukowina’: Legal Pluralism in the World Society. In Global Law Without a State, ed. Teubner, Gunther, 3–28. Aldershot, England: Dartmouth.Google Scholar
UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). 1997a. World Investment Report 1997: Transnational Corporations, Market Structure, and Competition Policy. New York and Geneva: United Nations.Google Scholar
UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). 1997b. Trade and Development Report, 1997. New York and Geneva: United Nations.Google Scholar
UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). 1998a. World Investment Report 1998: Trends and Determinants. New York and Geneva: United Nations.Google Scholar
UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). 1998b. Bilateral Investment Treaties in the Mid-1990s. New York and Geneva: United Nations.Google Scholar
UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). 1999. World Investment Report 1999: Foreign Direct Investment and the Challenges of Development. New York and Geneva: United Nations.Google Scholar
Unger, Roberto Mangabeira. 1998. Democracy Realized. London: Verso.Google Scholar
van der Walt, André. 1994. Property Rights, Land Rights, and Environmental Rights. In Rights and Constitutionalism: The New South African Legal Order, ed. van Wyk, David, Dugard, John, de Villiers, Bertus, and Davis, Dennis, 455–501. Kenwyn, South Africa: Juta.Google Scholar
van der Walt, André. 1997. The Constitutional Property Clause. Kenwyn, South Africa: Juta.Google Scholar
Vandevelde, Kenneth J. 1992. United States Investment Treaties: Policy and Practice. Deventer, The Netherlands: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Vargas, Jorge A. 1994. NAFTA, the Chiapas Rebellion, and the Emergence of Mexican Ethnic Law. California Western International Law Journal 25:1–79.Google Scholar
Wagner, J. Martin. 1999. International Investment, Expropriation, and Environmental Protection. Golden Gate University Law Review 29:465–527.Google Scholar
Weiler, J. H. H. 1994. A Quiet Revolution: The European Court of Justice and Its Interlocutors. Comparative Political Studies 26:510–34.Google Scholar
Weiler, J. H. H. 1995. The State “über alles”: Demos, Telos, and the German Maastricht Decision. Jean Monnet Working Papers No. 6/95. http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/JeanMonnet/papers/95/9506ind.html.Google Scholar
Weiler, J. H. H. 1996. European Neo-Constitutionalism: In Search of Foundations for the European Constitutional Order. Political Studies 64:517–83.Google Scholar
Weston, Burns H. 1975. “Constructive Takings” under International Law: A Modest Foray into the Problem of “Creeping Expropriation. Virginia Journal of International Law 7:103.Google Scholar
Witherell, William H. 1995. The OECD Multilateral Agreement on Investment. Transnational Corporations 4(2): 1–14.Google Scholar
WTO Secretariat. 1996. Trade and Foreign Direct Investment. World Trade and Arbitration Materials 8:37–100.Google Scholar