Introduction

International investment agreements ("IIAs") are designed to protect foreign investments against certain political risks arising in the host state. While the number of IIAs and investment disputes thereunder have been steadily growing, to date only very few claims have directly addressed protection of intellectual property rights ("IPR" or "IPRs").[1] The apparent lack of activity in this area is surprising for several reasons. First, of the more than 2,600 IIAs concluded in the last fifty years, the majority of those treaties expressly lists IPRs as a form of protected ...