Managing Expectations: Beyond Formal Adjudication
The international investment system has depended heavily on international arbitration to provide guidance and clarification on the standards contained in international investment agreements. In order to assess the system realistically, this commentary discusses unpacking stakeholder expectations by recognizing where expectations may have been overly optimistic and thinking systematically about the mechanisms through which to capture and manage regulatory discretion. This article evaluates ideas expressed by Anne van Aaken and Bart Legum, which consider different ways to achieve regulatory and commercial balance, and offers a lens for thinking systematically about managing stakeholder expectations in the international investment system. A critical issue for international investment law relates to cognitive psychology and how to manage the expectations of differently situated stakeholders. This commentary explores different methods to managing stakeholder expectations and investment treaty conflict such as education and different doctrinal opportunities such as administrative law’s model of formal and informal rule-making and adjudication. This commentary concludes that an evidence-based nuanced analysis allows consideration of specific dynamics about stakeholder objectives, enabling a more realistic assessment of the international investment regime.
External consultants as actors in european trade and investment policymaking
Over the last several years impact assessment studies have become a standard tool in trade and investment policymaking processes. Within the European Union there are two types of studies that examine the impact of trade policies: Impact Assessments (IAs) and Sustainability Impact Assessments (SIAs). Two characteristics of the latter are particularly noteworthy. First, SIAs signal an evolution in the tools employed in the trade and investment policymaking process. They analyse the potential economic, social, human rights, and environmental impacts of ongoing trade negotiations. Second, SIAs are an instrument for cooperation between an enlarged number of actors with an interest in the negotiation process. There are three main players involved in the conduct of SIAs: consultants, stakeholders, and the Commission’s services. SIAs are independent assessments carried out by external consultants during trade negotiations. Consultants should be perceived as policy actors, not true trade policymakers. Furthermore, the actorness of consultants should not be overstated, as several factors lead to a diminished influence of consultants in the policymaking process. Since they are not stakeholders, and much less policymakers, consultants should not be expected to be ‘drivers of change’. The negotiation of trade and investment policies has always been, and will continue to be, an inherently political process.
The Italian Renaissance: Culture and Society in Italy
In this newly revised edition of his widely acclaimed work, Peter Burke presents a social and cultural history of the Italian Renaissance. He discusses the social and political institutions that existed in Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and he analyzes the ways of thinking and seeing that characterized this period of extraordinary artistic creativity. Developing a distinctive approach, the author is concerned not only with the finished works of Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, and others, but also with the social background, patterns of recruitment, and means of subsistence of this "cultural elite." He thus makes a major contribution both to our understanding of the Italian Renaissance and to our comprehension of the complex relations between culture and society. An excellent social history of the lives and culture of the artists and artisans which made it possible for the arts to flourish.