Fortifying Inequality

In this chapter, foreign investor protections are introduced as a symbol and guarantor of global inequality. Backed by the most powerful adjudicative mechanism in international law, these protections benefit 255,000 people whose combined wealth exceeds that of 80 per cent of the world’s adult population, about four billion people. They lead one to ask if the one hundred companies responsible for most industrial greenhouse gas emissions, for example, are so vulnerable or helpful to others as to deserve extraordinary international protection. Commonplace arguments in favour of investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS) are surveyed and criticized. The promotional role of the ISDS industry of arbitrators, lawyers, and experts, for which ISDS has generated to billions in fees, is also highlighted, focusing on arbitrators whose pro-investor interpretations laid a foundation for the explosion of ISDS.