Investment Law's Alibis: Colonialism, Imperialism, Debt and Development

257 Pages·2022·2.218 MB·English

by  David Schneiderman

’
INVESTMENT LAW S ALIBIS
This book aims to connect narratives associated with the past to the
internationalregimethatprotectspropertyandcontractrightsofforeign
investors. The book scrutinizes justifications offered to sustain practices
associatedwithcolonialism,imperialism,civilizedjustice,debtanddevel-
opment, revealing that a number of the rationales offered in support of
investment law disciplines replicate those arising out of this discredited
past.Byrevealingtheselinkages,thebookraisesconcernsaboutinvestment
law’spremises.Itwouldappearthatthenormativefoundationsfortoday’s
regimereproducesdiscursivepracticesthatarelessthancompelling.The
bookarguesthatcitizensdeservemorethanhistoricallydiscreditedreasons
to justify the exercise of power over them – something more than mere
pretext.
  isProfessorofLawandPoliticalScienceatthe
University of Toronto where he teaches and writes in the areas of
constitutionallawandinternationalinvestmentlaw.Hehasbeenvisiting
ProfessorofLawatGothenburgUniversity,UniversityofStockholm,Tel
AvivUniversity,HebrewUniversityofJerusalem,GeorgetownUniversity,
ColumbiaUniversity and the NewSchool forSocial Research. He isthe
authorofovereightyarticlesandbookchaptersandisalsotheauthoror
editoroftwelvebooks.
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CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN INTERNATIONAL
AND COMPARATIVE LAW: 168
Established in 1946, this series produces high quality, reflective and
innovativescholarshipinthefieldofpublicinternationallaw.Itpublishes
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insights from private international law, comparative law and trans-
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After seventy years, Cambridge Studies in International and
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ProfessorofInternationalLaw,UniversityofManchester
andSciencesPoLawSchool
Alistofbooksintheseriescanbefoundattheendofthisvolume.
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’
INVESTMENT LAW S ALIBIS
Colonialism, Imperialism, Debt
and Development
DAVID SCHNEIDERMAN
UniversityofToronto
Published online by Cambridge University Press
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www.cambridge.org
Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9781009153492
DOI:10.1017/9781009153515
©DavidSchneiderman2022
Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception
andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements,
noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten
permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress.
Firstpublished2022
AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary.
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Names:Schneiderman,David,1958–author.
Title:Investmentlaw’salibis:colonialism,imperialism,debtanddevelopment/
DavidSchneiderman,UniversityofToronto.
Description:Cambridge,UnitedKingdom;NewYork,NY:CambridgeUniversityPress,2022.|
Series:Cambridgestudiesininternationalandcomparativelaw|Includesbibliographical
referencesandindex.
Identifiers:LCCN2022013581(print)|LCCN2022013582(ebook)|ISBN9781009153492
(hardback)|ISBN9781009153508(paperback)|ISBN9781009153515(epub)
Subjects:LCSH:Lawandeconomicdevelopment.|Investments,Foreign–Lawandlegislation.|
Debts,External–Lawandlegislation–Developingcountries.|Developingcountries–Foreign
economicrelations–Developedcountries.
Classification:LCCK3820.S362022 (print)|LCCK3820 (ebook)|
DDC343.07–dc23/eng/20220526
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ofURLsforexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredtointhispublication
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accurateorappropriate.
Published online by Cambridge University Press
To my sister Marilyn,
fondly remembered,
and
to her daughter, Emily,
who carries on her legacy of kindness
Published online by Cambridge University Press
Irefusetheuniversalalibi...
Iwait
Foreachoneofyoutoconfess
LeonardCohen,‘WhatI’mDoingHere’inFlowersforHitler(McClelland
&Stewart1964)13
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction: Investment Law among the Ruins 1
1 Colonialism of Investment Law 16
2 Imperialism of Investment Law 38
3 The Decline and Rise of Standards of Civilized Justice 66
4 The Stifling Threat of Debt 89
5 The Difficulty of Decolonizing Investment Law 129
6 Divesting for Development 153
Conclusion 171
Bibliography 180
Index 225
vii
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ThisbookisthefruitofanintellectualsojourntoSweden.Ioweparticu-
lar thanks to Pål Wrange of the Department of Law at Stockholm
University and his colleagues at Stockholm Centre for International
Law and Justice, Mark Klamberg and Said Mahmoudi, who generously
provided me with an institutional home abroad. I am grateful for Pål’s
generous welcome and my continued collaboration as an affiliated pro-
fessor of law at Stockholm University.
I am also indebted to Gregor Noll and Sara Stendhal of the
Department of Law at Gothenburg University for inviting me to serve
as Torgny Segerstedt Visiting Professor in 2019–20. Interacting with
Gregor and Sara and other colleagues at Gothenburg was an immense
gift during my tenure there (until the Covid-19 pandemic struck). I am
grateful to the Torgny Segerstedt Foundation for their support and am
privileged to have served in a chair honouring the Swedish newspaper
editor who, in 1933, called out Nazism as an abomination to humanity.
AtbothStockholmandGothenburg,Iwasveryfortunatetohavebeen
surrounded by a talented group of graduate students who warmly wel-
comed a North American with foreign legal sensibilities. One of the real
joysofvisitingbothlawschoolswasanopportunitytointeractwith,and
learn from, these emerging scholars.
The influences at work in this book are many. Among the non-
bibliographic sources, but one of the most profound, were summers
spent as a youth worker at Elizabeth Metis Settlement, a community of
Cree-speaking non-status Indians in north-eastern Alberta, who wel-
comed me into their circles in the summers of 1980 and 1981. It was in
the course of being immersed in that community that I learned most
about the hardship, but also the joys and humour, of Indigenous life in
North America.
Iwasprivilegedtopresentdraftchaptersofthisbookattheinaugural
International Economic Law Collective Conference at Warwick Law
School, the Institute for Law and Global Policy Conference (IGLP) at
viii
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 ix
Harvard Law School, the Pasts and Futures of Property Seminar Series
at Lund University Law School, the European Journal of International
Law (EJIL) Symposium on Inequalities and International Law, the
Transnational Law Colloquium at the Center for Transnational Legal
Studies(CTLS),andtheGlobalization,LawandJusticeWorkshopatthe
UniversityofToronto.Iamgratefulforthemanycommentsandinsights
offered at these events. I am particularly indebted to the intellectual
friendship of Jimena Sierra and Frederico Suarez, who included me in
their panel at IGLP, to Leila Brannstrom, Marcus Gunneflo, and Daria
Davitti for their intellectual engagement and hospitality at Lund, to
Michael Waibel and Lee Buchheit for comments at the EJIL workshop,
to Peter Byrne and Walter Stoffel for welcoming me at CTLS, and to
Karen Knop for convening the Toronto workshop. I continue to be
indebted to the Social Science and Humanities Research Council for a
grant that helped to support part of this research and to John Metzger
for bibliographic help. An earlier version of Chapter 3 was previously
published in Transnational Legal Theory.
This book would never have been completed without the love and
supportofPratimaRaoandourchildrenKiranandAnika.Notonlydid
theyprovidemewiththeluxuryoftimenecessarytocompletethiswork,
but they also tolerated my experiments in home cooking.
The book is dedicated to two women who are close to my heart – my
departedsister,Marilyn,andherdaughter,Emily.Thefirst,Imissdearly,
and the second, I am fortunate to have in my life.
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