• Projekt

    Constraining Investment Arbitration: The Evolution of a New Generation of International Investment Agreements

    International investment protection became a hotly debated topic in the most recent free trade agreements such as CETA, TPP, or TTIP. The reservations and reactions of some states can be interpreted as an expression of growing discontent with the development of the regime. The explosion of the caseload of arbitration tribunals, conflicting and inconsistent decisions by tribunals, far-reaching and investor-friendly interpretations of treaty standards, and the threat of regulatory chill, put the system under pressure.
In consideration of these developments, some states began to review their international investment agreements (IIAs) and tried to secure a better balance between investor rights and the sovereign policy space for governments in their IIAs. Furthermore, states recently concluded or proposed IIAs, which do not delegate the authority over investor-state disputes to arbitration tribunals as they routinely did in past agreements. This combination of interrelated reactions directly leads to the research question of my project: How can we explain the emergence of a new generation of international investment agreements, which restricts the autonomy of investment arbitration? 
I develop a theoretical framework that aims to integrate liberal arguments about preference formation and the relevance of the domestic level into explanations of the rational design of international institutions. I argue that changing preferences of domestic groups and negative externalities of IIAs at the domestic level, force states to think differently about the costs and benefits of international cooperation. I expect these changing preferences to have an impact on the design of IIAs and the international investment regime as a whole. I test my assumption by constructing an index of IIA characteristics, which serves to describe the development of the regime. I further complement these findings with case studies on the politics of recent international investment agreements, which aim helping to explain the causes and mechanisms of international investment negotiations.  

  • Forschungsgruppe

    Herr Dotzauer wird von Prof. Dr. Thomas Dietz betreut und ist Mitglied der Forschungsgruppe „Europäische und Internationale Governance“. 

  • Werdegang

    seit 2016 Aufnahme in die Graduate School of Politics (GraSP) der WWU Münster.
    seit 02/2016 Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Lehrstuhl für Öffentliches Recht, Völker- und Europarecht sowie empirische Rechtsforschung (Prof. Dr. Niels Petersen), WWU Münster.
    02/2015 - 01/2016 Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Institut für Politikwissenschaft, WWU Münster.
    10/2012 - 12/2014 Studium der Politikwissenschaft an der WWU Münster, Master of Arts.
    10/2008 - 06/2012 Studium der Politikwissenschaft an der Universität Bielefeld (Auslandsaufenthalt an der Universität Lund/Schweden), Bachelor of Arts.

  • Veröffentlichungen und Konferenzbeiträge

    Veröffentlichungen

    • Dietz, Thomas & Marius Dotzauer (2015): ‚Political Dimensions of Investment Arbitration: ISDS and the TTIP Negotiations’, ZenTra Working Papers in Transnational Studies, Nr. 48/2015.

    Konferenzbeiträge

    • „The Politicization of ISDS in TTIP: Contestation and its Effects“, präsentiert auf der Transnational Law & Social Justice Conference, London/UK, 26./27.6.2015. 

  • Weiteres

    Forschungsinteressen:

    • International Investment
    • Economic Diplomacy
    • International Treaty Design
    • International Law