Study On Public Health Issues In International Investment Treaties

With the acceleration of the process of economic globalization, international investment has become an important part of the economic development of a country. International investment is inevitably related to the host country’s environment, resources, labor protection and other issues, which are closely related to public health. However, one-sided attraction of foreign investment makes the host country’s public health crisis worse. There are few provisions on public health in the traditional investment treaties. However, a large number of traditional investment treaties are still effective, which make the public health damage but can not get relief. Although there are relevant public health regulations in recent investment treaties, but have no clear definition of them. In addition, it exists expropriation clause, which makes’full, timely and effective compensation’as one of the necessary conditions for the legitimacy of the government regulatory measures aimed at the purpose of public health and other public interests, all of which makes the host country’s public health protection in a very disadvantageous position.In short, whether it is the traditional investment treaties or the recent investment treaties, the contents are controlled by the developed countries and the essence is to safeguard the interests of investors. In addition, almost all of the international investment treaties have international investment arbitration provisions for investor-state disputes. Commercial investment arbitration mechanism coupled with the defects of the system itself make public health protection in host country face challenges. These leave the host country’s public health protection with hidden dangers. Therefore, it is imperative to reform the international investment treaty mechanism and international investment arbitration mechanism.This paper is divided into four parts. In the first part, it is concluded that the host country’s public health protection under the international investment treaty mechanism is facing severe challenges through the analysis of the basic connotation of public health and provisions on public health problems in international investment treaties. The second part discusses the reasons of the international investment treaty mechanism of which makes the public health protection of the host country facing severe challenges:On the one hand, the nature of international investment treaties to maintain investor interests and international investment treaty mechanism lack of coordination and direct international investment arbitration provisions make the public health protection facing difficulties under international investment treaty mechanism. On the other hand, the commercial international investment arbitration and the procedural defects of the international investment arbitration make the public health protection facing dilemma under international investment arbitration mechanism. The third part puts forward the reform suggestions to the problem, including the reform of international investment treaties in the aspect of entity and the reform of international investment arbitration in the aspect of procedure. The fourth part introduces the current situation of public health protection in China and puts forward the countermeasures for the problems.