1 The Influence of EU Common Investment Policy on the System of International Investment Law Abstract Extending exclusive European Union (EU) competence to foreign direct investment (FDI) in the Lisbon Treaty has had profound implications. The EU began to develop its own investment policy, including negotiating either international investment agreements or comprehensive trade and investment agreements with third parties. Taking into account the magnitude of the EU economy and the fact that EU Member States have concluded almost 1 400 bilateral investment treaties (BITs) out of roughly 3 300 in force worldwide, the potential of European influence over the system of international investment, based principally on BITs, is enormous. The aim of this dissertation is to assess how and in which way the new EU competence changes the system. The EU investment policy has developed a specific approach towards investment protection and investment dispute mechanism which does not envision content declared at its beginning. According to initial documents such as the European Commission's Communication Towards a comprehensive European international investment policy, the Union should have followed the available best practices of the Member States. Nevertheless, during the first bilateral negotiations with Canada and...

Performance requirements act as policy instruments for achieving broadly-defined economic and developmental objectives of States, especially industrial and technological development objectives. Many States consider that performance requirements distort trade and investment flows, negatively impact global and national welfare and disrupt investment decisions compared to business-as-usual scenarios. As a result, a number of States have committed to prohibiting performance requirements in international investment agreements (“IIAs.”). Performance requirement prohibitions (“PRPs”) are meant to eliminate trade-distorting performance requirements and performance requirements which replace investor decision-making by State decision-making. This thesis focuses on providing answers to two research questions: first, how do States prohibit performance requirements in IIAs? And second, how should PRPs in IIAs be interpreted and applied? For the first time, this thesis: proposes a comprehensive understanding of PRPs in IIAs by drawing notably on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (“GATT”) Uruguay Round of negotiations and on the United States Bilateral Investment Treaty (“BIT”) Programme; develops a detailed typology and analysis of PRPs in IIAs through the identification of systematically reproduced drafting patterns; conducts the first critical and in-depth analysis of all arbitral awards which have decided claims based on PRPs in IIAs; analyses interpretation and application issues related to provisions that exempt government procurement from PRPs and to reservations that shield sensitive non-conforming measures or strategically important sectors from PRPs; and anticipates the application of most-favoured nation (“MFN”) treatment clauses to PRPs in the future. Finally, this thesis formulates proposals that can help interpret and apply existing PRPs and draft future PRPs in a more deliberate and informed way.

歐盟廣泛地與世界各國簽訂優惠貿易協定，透過優惠貿易待遇的給予來促進與各國間政治與經貿的緊密連繫。而對於生產者而言，要適用這些貿易優惠的前提就是透過遵循歐盟優惠性原產地規則而使產品取得原產產品身分，無論是以完全取得或是經過充分作業或加工而產生實質轉型的方式。 本論文主要的研究目的，在於分析個別歐盟優惠貿易協定下關於累積規定、微量條款、出口退稅禁止等關鍵條文，與附錄清單就產品「實質轉型」標準規定的法律義涵，以及其隱含的政經意義；並就該意義進一步推衍出對於台灣的生產者，在眾多的歐盟優惠性協定法律架構下，存在個別規則適用難易程度具有差別且該差別將對生產成本有所影響之事實。而本論文另一重點則是就法規與生產稟賦搭配後得推衍出原則性之評估方法來評比出個別優惠性原產地規則在適用上之優劣順序，以協助台灣廠商未來考慮使用此項貿易優惠來進軍歐盟市場時，在國際投資之佈局上可以納入考量或作為參考，以選擇出最有利的受惠國或區域作為生產資源配置之基礎。 為使法律層面與實務上之運作加以結合，本論文進一步以台灣的成鞋廠商做為研究觀察之對象，檢視其是否會因為適用歐盟優惠性原產地規則而改變投資模式，另亦將與鞋廠商實際訪談所得之結論與推演出原則性評估方法加以比較，進一步檢討該評估方法之適用能力與情形，並提出應隨不同情況而加以修正相關假設之注意。 關鍵詞：歐盟優惠性原產地規則；原產地規則；原產產品；實質轉型；累積規定；微量條款；出口退稅禁止；附錄清單；生產稟賦；國際投資；成鞋。 / Europe Union (EU) broadly sign the preferential trade agreements with the other countries in the globe, and through the conferring of the preferential trade treatments, EU attempts to build up the tight political and economic bonds worldwide. The premise for producers who want to enjoy these trade preferences is to make sure that their product are qualified and recognized as “original product” in those beneficiary countries either by following the regulation of standard of “wholly obtained” or “sufficiently working or processing” stipulated in each preferential Rule of Origin (ROO). The main subject of this thesis is to analyze the legal meaning and the underlined policy purpose of the critical provisions in each EU preferential ROO, such as “cumulation”, “general tolerance rule”, “no-drawback rule”, and the standard of “sufficiently working or processing” of a product (substantial transformation) stipulated in the List Rules (in the Annex part) attached in each preferential trade agreement. And from those meaning Author reasons out the fact that the level of difficulty concerning applying and using these preferential ROO are different and the difference has its influence on cost of producing. Author also infers the basic method to assess the level of difficulty of these ROO while combining analyzing the ROO provisions and endowment in the beneficiary countries. This method is to assist those Taiwanese producers who have willing to use the EU preferential ROO to make their product qualified as “original product” with the minimized producing cost when entering into EU market, that is, to help producers cherry pick the beneficial countries (or area) for making investments distribution and deploying concerned producing resources and still have their the products entitled as “original product”. To combine the legal dimension and the producer’s operation in practice, Author further chooses Taiwanese footwear producers as observed subject of using the ROO and see if they would change their mode of investment thereafter. Author compares the conclusion derived from interviewing footwear producers with the basic assessment method, and further examines the applicability of the method and the potential correction of hypothesis under certained situations. Key words: EU preferential Rule of Origin, Rule of Origin, original product, substantial transformation, cumulation, general tolerance rule, no-drawback rule, List Rules, endowment, international investment, footwear.

The relationship between international investment agreements and EU law has attracted increased attention in past few years. The aim of this thesis is to bring a detailed analysis of various aspects of this complicated relationship. In attainment of this aim it proceeds in the following steps. After a short introduction (Chapter I.), Chapter II. briefly overviews typical content of bilateral investment treaties, following with a more detailed analysis of relevant EU law rules concerning foreign investment and subsequent comparison of both sets of rules. Chapter III. deals with investment agreements to be concluded by the EU, in particular with questions of external competence for foreign investment, responsibility for breaches of investment agreements concluded by the EU and the future shape of EU investment policy. The status of existing bilateral investment treaties concluded between EU member states and third countries is analyzed in Chapter IV. Chapter V. tackles various issues related to investment treaties concluded between member states (so called intra-EU BITs).

Investment Policy of the European Union - protection of foreign direct investment Abstract One of the changes brought about by the Lisbon Treaty is the explicit inclusion of foreign direct investment and its protection in the common commercial policy of the European Union. This is one of the areas of exclusive competence of the EU. The European Union has subsequently stated negotiating bilateral agreements governing, inter alia, investment issues. However, it has not been spared from controversy and negative publicity that has been accompanying especially the TTIP and the CETA. This work aims to analyse the investment policy of the EU and mutual interaction of its institutions with the Member States and third parties. After general introduction to the topic of international investment law and EU law (chapters II. and III.), it is devoted to the issue of protection of foreign investment in the internal market. Its regime is then compared with the BIT regime (chapter IV.). Attention is then focussed towards the EU's external relations in the field of investment protection. Its competence is subjected to further analysis (chapter V.) and current results of efforts of the Commission and the EU as such are also discussed (chapter VI.). It is so in the light of possible impacts of foreign investment in terms of...

The absence of a relevant legal basis between huge commercial partners such as the EU as a single entity and the Russian Federation promoted the emergence of a legal vacuum. The long term cooperation between Russia and the EU has only one bilateral agreement - the Agreement on Partnership and Cooperation signed in 1994, which is however obsolete, and does not meet the contemporary needs. The adequate legal basis for Russia-EU cooperation in the gas sector is still missing. The protection of investments in the gas sector is being realized by bilateral agreements between Russia and EU member states, soft law and general international agreements, without any specifications for those two partners. The only international instrument covering the energy relations of these two partners - Energy Charter Treaty cannot be considered as a reliable mechanism, as Russia withdrew from it more than 8 years ago. The reasons of the withdrawal and the Yukos case as an illustrative example are discussed in this paper. In order to avoid uncertainty in such strategic area as gas investment relations and unpredictable decisions between the states represented by the commercial entities, there is a need to design a substantive legal basis, and a need to consider on the adequate dispute resolution body. In this thesis, key...