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15 Cardozo J. Int'l & Comp. L. 73 (2007)
Tearing down the Great Wall: The New Generation Investment Treaties of the People's Republic of China

handle is hein.journals/cjic15 and id is 77 raw text is: TEARING DOWN THE GREAT WALL: THE NEW GENERATION INVESTMENT TREATIES OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA Stephan W. Schill* ABSTRACT The People's Republic of China (PRC or China) has emerged as the world's premier destination of foreign invest- ment in the developing world and is continuously strengthening its position as a source of outward foreign investment, notably in Asia and Africa. In this context, the PRC has concluded over 110 bilateral investment treaties (BITs) that grant protection against expropriation and establish other standards of treatment for foreign investors in China and Chinese investors abroad. While the PRC was originally hesitant regarding international investment protection, the country started, beginning in the late 1990s, entering into new generation BITs that break with her long-standing reservations towards national treatment for for- eign investments and comprehensive investor-State dispute set- tlement. Surprisingly, this change in treaty practice has so far only received little attention in international legal scholarship, although the conclusion of the new generation BITs constitutes a fundamental change in China's foreign economic policy. The paper gives an account of the PRC's investment treaty practice and shows how her new generation BITs provide novel mecha- nisms of protection for foreign investors. It is argued that these treaties help to transform China's domestic legal system signifi- cantly, support her transition to a market economy, and strengthen the country's integration into the global economy. Ultimately, China's new investment treaty practice is also an im- portant indicator for the evaluation of international investment law by a developing country in the struggle about the appropri- ate level of investment protection in an increasingly global economy. * Scholar of the European Recovery Program/Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes; Hauser Global Scholar (New York University School of Law, 2005/2006); First and Second Legal State Exam (Bavaria, 2001, 2003); LL.M. in European and International Economic Law (Universitat Augsburg, 2002); LL.M. International Legal Studies (New York Univer- sity, 2006). I would like to thank Owen D. Nee, Jr., Dara C. Acusar, and Lars Markert for comments on earlier versions of this paper.

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