Human Rights in Investment Governance: Transformation, Contestation, and Practice
Overarching Theme
The research network examines the transformative potential – and the limits – of human rights within international investment law and governance, using investor–State dispute settlement (ISDS) as a central empirical field. Investment governance is understood as the interaction between legal frameworks, institutional processes, State practice, and investor conduct through which investment relations are structured, contested, and adjudicated.
Operating on a meta-methodological level, the network brings together three core lines of inquiry: first, diagnosing when and how human rights arguments shape legal and political practice in investment governance, including patterns of silence where such arguments remain absent; second, identifying legal and institutional pathways through which human rights considerations may be more systematically embedded in treaty design, State defence strategies, and adjudicative interpretation; and third, developing empirical and text-based approaches to assess the extent to which human rights arguments produce measurable forms of legal or institutional transformation over time.
A further cross-cutting dimension of the network is the comparative analysis of how such transformative effects unfold across different world regions and political-economic contexts. Particular attention is given to variation in domestic governance frameworks and to the role of strategic, state-backed investors, whose investment practices and dispute dynamics may shape the conditions under which human rights arguments emerge, are resisted, or remain absent.
By combining doctrinal analysis with political-economy perspectives and mixed empirical methods, the research provides a shared analytical framework within which diverse substantive projects are situated.
Project Synopsis
Diagnostic Strand: Human Rights in ISDS Practice
This strand systematically assesses whether, how, and with what effects human rights considerations arise in international investment protection and ISDS. Particular attention is given to instances where human rights arguments might reasonably be expected but remain absent, allowing for an analysis of the structural, political, and doctrinal conditions that produce such “silences.” The strand also considers how tribunal reasoning, party submissions, and evidentiary practices shape the visibility – or invisibility – of human rights concerns.
Implementation Strand: UNGPs in Investment Contexts
This strand examines the uptake and practical implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in concrete investment settings. It includes comparative empirical work on investment relationships, such as Chinese investments in Southern Africa, and analyses the extent to which human rights due diligence, corporate governance practices, and regulatory frameworks influence dispute emergence, State responses, and the framing of claims in ISDS proceedings.
Litigation and State Practice Strand
This strand analyses how respondent States mobilise human rights and public-interest arguments within ISDS. It focuses in particular on evolving defence strategies, including:
- reliance on essential security clauses in investment treaties to justify State measures (for example, under provisions such as Article 24(2) of the Energy Charter Treaty),
- the exclusion or protection of sanctions measures from potential ISDS challenges (as reflected, for instance, in recent EU sanctions frameworks),
- the strategic use of counterclaims, as envisaged under the UNCITRAL Working Group III 2025 Draft Provisions, and
- the invocation of climate-related jurisprudence and advisory opinions from international courts and tribunals to support public-interest defences.
These developments are analysed with a view to their implications for doctrines such as proportionality, police powers, standards of review, and broader public-interest justifications.
Governance and Reform Strand
This strand tracks and interprets ongoing reform processes in international investment governance, particularly within UNCITRAL Working Group III and related fora. It analyses how demands for stronger human rights protection are articulated, negotiated, and translated into legal and institutional reforms, including in areas where emerging security-driven regulation intersects with investment protection and ISDS.
Integration and Design Strand
This strand develops pathways for strengthening human rights protection across different levels of the investment regime. It addresses:
- doctrinal foundations in public international law (including systemic integration, proportionality, and margin of appreciation),
- the structuring of State defence repertoires (including counterclaims and evidentiary practices),
- tribunal interpretive approaches, and
- treaty and procedural design (such as model clauses, exceptions, due diligence obligations, transparency mechanisms, and amicus participation).
The aim is to translate insights from practice and reform processes into coherent strategies for embedding human rights more systematically within investment governance.
Methodological Meta-Strand (Cross-Cutting)
This strand develops empirical and text-based methods to identify and evaluate the transformative potential – and boundaries – of human rights within investment law and practice. It establishes indicators across discursive, doctrinal, procedural, institutional, and outcome-based dimensions, enabling a systematic assessment of whether and how human rights arguments generate observable forms of legal transformation over time. This methodological framework underpins all other strands and provides a common basis for comparison across cases, regions, and legal contexts.