"The idea of a unified international economic law has undergone a renaissance. The rise of investment chapters in multilateral free trade agreements, cross-regime jurisprudential borrowing, and the emergence of trade-like institutions in investment adjudication has given credence to the idea that the once poster child of the fragmentation of international law may be moving towards harmonization. This book sets out to test this convergence hypothesis in international economic law with a focus on the field of adjudication. Are the regimes moving closely together? Or is it just an epiphenomenon that disguises a deeper divergence? This interdisciplinary book provides the first in-depth study of convergence of adjudication within international economic law, with a focus on dispute settlement design, use of precedent, and interpretive strategy. We hope it provides a valuable resource to scholars and practitioners alike in thinking through the extent of convergence as well as its underlying dynamics and empirical limits, especially given a series of reform efforts to close the gap. The book draws together scholars and some advocates from a range of disciplines, resulting in a multimethod perspective on convergence and divergence. The methods vary from comparative case design and doctrinal analysis to regression, network and computational text analysis. The origins of the volume lie in a conference organized by the Pluricourts Centre of Excellence, University of Oslo: Adjudicating International Trade and Investment Disputes: Between Interaction and Isolation"--.
Adjudicating Trade and Investment Disputes : Convergence or Divergence?