Research On The Problem Of "Treaty Shopping" In International Investment Arbitration

In today's international investment practice,more and more multinational investors through the nationality planning or corporate restructuring to choose the treaty which can provide higher protection standards for its investment.As an emerging issues in the field of international investment,academia has not yet formed a unified view on the validity and legitimacy of “Treaty Shopping”.International investment arbitration institutions(This article only discusses ICSID)also does not show clear attitude.There are even two very different verdict on ICSID's awards.Two main factors cause different result: the timing of the investors to “Treaty Shopping”;and whether the investors choose treaty in good faith.In addition,factors such as ICSID arbitration mechanism,standards of investor's nationality and investment,source of the claim are also affect the arbitration award.Based on the ICSID's awards and the present situation of China,before the investment,Chinese overseas investors should make a background investigation and do some planning work on the target countries.Doing “Treaty Shopping” as far as possible before investing.When China is the host country,first of all,we should clarify our attitude on “Treaty Shopping”,secondly we should try to limit the meaning of the “investors” and “investment”,last but not the least when the dispute was resorted to ICSID,we should make good use of piercing the corporate veil to prevent foreign investor from abusing of the treaty.