TEM 0079 International Trade and Investment Law
TEM 0079 International Trade and Investment Law
Please note that this is a preliminary course description. The final version will be published in June 2027.
While the current landscape of international trade and investment is under considerable pressure from shifting international politics, the underlying reality is a world economy that remains deeply interconnected. This course examines the two major regimes of international law that regulate and protect cross-border trade and investment: the World Trade Organisation system and international investment law. Rather than treating these as separate subjects, the course foregrounds what they share — both are built on a common organising principle of non-discrimination between foreign and domestic (or foreign and foreign) economic actors — while also exploring why they have developed into strikingly different systems of substantive rules, procedure, and dispute resolution.
Students will learn the institutional architecture of the WTO and its underlying treaties, the structure and history of the international investment law regime, and how disputes are resolved within each. The course also situates both regimes within general international law and examines their relationship to human rights and environmental protection. Throughout, the course engages critically with the debates that surround these regimes today, including their environmental record, their colonial and postcolonial history, and persistent asymmetries between the Global North and Global South in how the rules were made and whom they serve.
Knowledge:
- of the institutional structure and history of the WTO regime and its underlying treaties (GATT, GATS, TRIPS, the Dispute Settlement Understanding)
- of the institutional structure and history of the international investment law regime, including the role of bilateral and multilateral investment treaties and the ICSID Convention
- of non-discrimination as a shared organising principle of both regimes — most-favoured-nation and national treatment obligations, and the exceptions to them — including how the same underlying logic is expressed differently in trade and investment law
- of the further substantive disciplines specific to the WTO regime: tariffs, quantitative restrictions, rules on dumping and subsidies, and free trade areas
- of the further substantive protections specific to investment law: direct and indirect expropriation, fair and equitable treatment, full protection and security, and umbrella clauses
- of procedural rules and dispute resolution mechanisms in both regimes, including WTO panel and Appellate Body procedure and the arbitral process, jurisdiction, annulment, and enforcement in investment arbitration
- of how the two regimes relate to general international law, and to human rights and environmental law
Ability:
- to analyse, interpret, and clarify substantive and procedural rules of both regimes
- to synthesise legal rules from case law, treaty text, and other sources of international law
- to identify and solve legal problems within the scope of the two regimes
- to research a legal question, identify the relevant sources, and construct a reasoned argument for a given legal position
- to critically evaluate the current debates surrounding the regimes — including environmental concerns, postcolonial critique, Global North/South asymmetries, development impacts, and the use of diplomatic and economic influence — and to assess arguments for and against reform
- Understanding of the relationship between general international law and specialised legal regimes, and of how such regimes borrow from and respond to one another
- Ability to convey legal interpretation and analysis clearly in writing
- Understanding of how international economic law shapes, and is shaped by, domestic legal and political systems
- Capacity to reflect critically on the legitimacy and distributive effects of international legal regimes, including whose interests they serve and how
The course provides a legal introduction to the two principal regimes governing the international economy: trade law and investment law. Rather than treating these as fully separate subjects, the course begins from their shared foundation before examining the substantive rules, procedures, and dispute resolution mechanisms that distinguish them. Students will have repeated opportunities to compare the two regimes directly, understanding both the extent of their convergence and the limits of that convergence.
The course also situates both regimes within general international law and engages critically with the debates surrounding them today, including their environmental record, their colonial and postcolonial history, and persistent asymmetries between the Global North and Global South.
The course provides students with practically relevant legal knowledge, applicable in the public sector — advising authorities, supporting treaty negotiations, or protecting national interests — and in the private sector, advising commercial actors operating and investing internationally. It builds directly on the general international law course, applying its concepts to concrete, real-world scenarios in trade and investment.
The course has a high volume of complex legal material for students to understand and familiarise themselves with. This encourages the use of in-depth lectures that explain the various legal rules and structures. These lectures are planned to take up about 60% of the available teaching time. While the lectures follow traditional legal lecturing, they will be pre-phrased with the worked-example scaffolded exam form (see below). This allows the teaching to focus on systemic and structural elements, rather than giving excess attention to details or recall. The classroom teaching will be supplemented by in-class problem solving. Students will be provided with a scaffold of worked examples similar to the exam, and 40% of class time will be used to first discuss solutions in small groups and subsequently drafting mini solutions in class.
Bachelorgrad som kvalifiserer til opptak til studiet. I tillegg kan kurs i andre, tredje og/eller fjerde semester ha egne forkunnskapskrav og gå ut ifra at studenter har fulgt normal studieplan. For studenter på utveksling eller i gradssamarbeid vil tilsvarende kurs bli godkjent.
Disclaimer
Changes in exam type can be made until the course starts. In addition, unforeseen events or external conditions may call for deviations in teaching and exams.
| Assessments |
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Exam category: School Exam Form of assessment: Written School Exam - digital Exam/hand-in semester: First Semester Weight: 100 Grouping: Individual Support materials:
Duration: 5 Hour(s) Grading scale: ECTS Resit: Examination when next scheduled course |
A course of 1 ECTS credit corresponds to a workload of 26-30 hours. Therefore a course of 7,5 ECTS credit corresponds to a workload of at least 200 hours.
