an investor-state dispute settlement mechanism that is increasingly used by firms to protect what they see to be their rights: there were a minimum of 318 known treaty-based international investor-State disputes by the end of 2008,<sup>7</sup> with 30% of them brought by investors during 2006-2008 (figure 4). For comparison: 91 panel reports were issued under Article XXIII of the GATT between 1948 and 1994, and 161 panels were established by the Dispute Settlement Body under the WTO between the beginning of 1995 and November 24, 2008.<sup>8</sup>

**Figure 2. Growth of bilateral investment treaties, 1959-2008, by period and cumulative**

<!-- Start of picture text --> 1800 3000<br>1549<br>1600<br>2500<br>1400<br>1200 2000<br>1000<br>779 1500<br>800<br>600 1000<br>400<br>243<br>500<br>200 53 71<br>0 0<br>1959-1970 1971-1980 1981-1990 1991-2000 2001-2008<br>BITs per period Cumulative BITs<br><!-- End of picture text --> _Source_ : UNCTAD, www.unctad.org/iia consists of a great number of international investment agreements that are not identical in their language), some of them are related to the regime’s unbalanced nature and some of them are related to the workings of the arbitral system. One of the first to deal with some of these issues was José E. Alvarez, “Remarks,” American Society of International Law, _Proceedings of the 86th Annual Meeting, Apr. 1-4, 1992_ , at 550555 (1992). See also, Joseph E. Stiglitz, “Regulating multinational corporations: towards principles of cross-border legal frameworks in a globalized world balancing rights with responsibilities,” _American University International Law Review_ , vol. 23, issue 3 (2008), pp. 451-558; Gus van Harten, _Investment Treaty Arbitration and Public Law_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007); José E. Alvarez, “"The evolving foreign investment regime," http://www.asil.org/ilpost/president/pres080229.html; José E. Alvarez, “The once and future foreign investment regime,” in _Looking to the Future: Essays on International Law in Honor of W. Michael Reisman_ , forthcoming; M. Sornarajah, _The International Law of Foreign Investment, second edition_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); and M. Sornarajah, “A coming crisis: expansionary trends in investment treaty arbitration,” in Karl P. Sauvant with Michael Chiswick-Patterson, eds., _Appeals Mechanism in International Investment Disputes_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 39-80). Of course, there are differences between these various authors. Some call for radical changes, while others focus on specific aspects.

7 Only ICSID reports the number of cases; hence the actual number of disputes is likely to be higher. The following data are from UNCTAD, “Latest developments in investor-State dispute settlement,” _IIA Monitor No. 1 (2009)_ , UNCTAD/WEB/DIAE/IIA/2009/6, available at: http://www.unctad.org/en/docs/webdiaeia20096_en.pdf. (UNCTAD has the most comprehensive database on international investment disputes.) For a discussion of the reasons for this explosion of investment disputes, see Jeswald W. Salacuse, “Explaining the increased recourse to treaty-based investment dispute settlement,” in _Appeals Mechanism_ , op. cit., pp. 105–126.

8 It should be noted, however that disputes in the framework of the GATT/WTO multilateral trading system are State-State disputes.

4