International Law and Foreign Investment in Hydroelectric Industry: A Multidimensional Analysis

The main focus of the present article is on the entanglement between four bodies of international law sensitive to foreign investment in the creation and/or operation hydroelectric industry: i.e. international investment law, human rights law, international water law and private international law to the extent that public international law rules on conflict of laws on civil liability for transboundary damage are concerned. This horizontal approach to the analysis is supplemented by a vertical one looking at the interactions between international and domestic law. Consideration of the different bodies of international law in question is associated to that of the adjudicative, and non-adjudicative, means of dispute settlement available under each such bodies of law. On that score, the role of the foreign investor in a litigation scenery will be considered, primarily as claimant, but also, prospectively, in relation to the situation in the State hosting the investment is, or may become, respondent in inter-State litigation.