International Investment Fair And Equitable Treatment Principle

National Treatment(NT),Most-Favored-Nation Treatment(MFN) and Fair and Equitable Treatment(F&E Treatment) are three main treatment standards in international investment legal system.There are many discussions on both NT and MFN while explanations or interpretations on F&E treatment are still not clean or definite.Moreover,F&E treatment is often stipulated in China' s Bilateral Investment treaties(BITs) and can be manipulated by foreign investors to launch dispute resolution procedures according to China' s BITs that provide any dispute even the one arisen out of China' s violation of F&E treatment can be submitted to international dispute resolution institutes.Therefore,it is essential to make it clear how to utilize F&E treatment to defend China as the host country from being involved into such disputes.This paper is meant to make a detailed and systematic research on international arbitration practice relevant to F&E treatment and their significance to China regarding how China interpret F&E treatment for its own interests and how to use limitations on application of F&E treatment if China is involved into international dispute resolutions that are arisen out of violation of F&E treatment.This paper is divided into five parts:the first part deals with the history and development of F&E treatment;the second part presents detailed analysis on the relationship between F&E treatment and NT,MFN, Non-discrimination Treatment and International Minimum Treatment.The third part manifests the elements of F&E treatment.The fourth part discusses limitation on application of F&E treatment,foreign investors' obligations under F&E treatment and significance of F&E treatment to both host country and foreign investors.The last part makes an analysis on whether aforementioned elements of F&E treatment shall be adopted into China's investment legal system and the significance of F&E treatment to China acting as both host country and foreign investor.