Event

Book Launch: The Transformation of International Investment Law and Its Principles: Indirect Expropriation and Fair and Equitable Treatment

  • Speaker  Dr Güneş Ünüvar, Dr Randi Ayman, Mr Colin Brown

  • Location

    Luxembourg Centre for European Law

    4 rue Alphonse Weicker

    2721, Luxembourg, Luxembourg

  • Type(s)
    Free of charge, In-person event

This monograph offers a comprehensive examination of how international investment law has evolved through the interpretation and application of two foundational protection standards: Fair and Equitable Treatment (FET) and indirect expropriation. It explores how arbitral tribunals have shaped these principles in practice, and how arbitral jurisprudence, in turn, has influenced the drafting and recalibration of investment treaties over time.
The book includes an in-depth analysis of the European Union’s “new generation” investment agreements, including the CETA, EU–Singapore Investment Protection Agreement, EU–Vietnam Investment Protection Agreement, as well as the recently concluded EU–Chile and EU–Mexico agreements. The study situates these texts within the broader landscape of contemporary treaty-making, offering a detailed comparison with other comprehensive economic agreements and mega-regionals, such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). This comparative perspective illuminates broader global trends towards greater clarity, specificity, and balance in investment treaty design, as states seek to reconcile investor protection with regulatory autonomy and public policy objectives.

The book is available in both eBook and hardcopy formats from Springer Nature.

  • 10.00 – 10.10

    Opening remarks
    Assoc. Prof. Luigi Lonardo (Luxembourg Centre for European Law, University of Luxembourg)

  • 10.10 – 10.40

    Presentation of the book
    Dr Güneş Ünüvar

  • 10.40 – 11.10

    Commentaries
    Dr Randi Ayman (Senior Researcher, Luxembourg Centre for European Law, University of Luxembourg) and
    Mr Colin Brown (Head of Unit for Economic Security Instruments 2 – Dual Use, Export Controls and Sanctions, European Commission)

  • 11.10 – 11.30

    Q&A

Dr Güneş Ünüvar

Güneş Ünüvar was a postdoctoral researcher at the Luxembourg Centre for European Law (LCEL), University of Luxembourg until January 2026. His research focuses on international space law and international investment and economic law, particularly where the two intersect. His work addresses issues such as the regulation of outer space as an “environment,” the protection of foreign investments in space activities, emerging governance structures such as DAOs and DeFi in the space sector, and the reform of investor–State dispute settlement under UNCITRAL. He has widely published in leading journals including the Leiden Journal of International Law, Chinese Journal of International Law, and the Journal of International Dispute Settlement. His forthcoming monographs (Springer and Onikilevha, 2025) examine arbitral practice and EU investment treaty design.
Güneş is Managing Editor of the Journal of World Investment & Trade and serves as observer to UN COPUOS and UNCITRAL Working Group III. From June 2026, he will take up a Senior Lectureship at the University of Exeter.

    Discussants

    Dr Randi Ayman

    Randi Ayman is a Senior Researcher at the Luxembourg Center for European Law (LCEL) and a lawyer specializing in international law and dispute resolution. Before joining LCEL, Randi was a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg. Randi’s expertise focuses on public international law, the law of treaties, investment law & policy, and space law. She obtained her Ph.D. with the highest distinction from the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne for her thesis on the denunciation and renegotiation of treaties, later published as a monograph. Previously, Randi was Legal Counsel at the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) where she administered investor-state arbitration proceedings. Prior to that, she worked at the international arbitration practice of multinational law firms in Paris and at a United Nations specialized agency in Madrid. Dual-qualified lawyer in Egypt and France, Randi holds law degrees from Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne and from Cairo University.

      Mr Colin Brown

      Colin Brown is an international trade and investment lawyer. Since July 2025 he has been Head of Unit for Economic Security Instruments 2 – Dual Use, Export Controls and Sanctions. From November 2020 he was Head of Unit Legal aspects of trade and sustainable development and investment in the Directorate General for Trade of the European Commission. From 2013 to 2020 he was Deputy Head of Unit of Dispute Settlement and Legal Aspects of Trade Policy. He was the head of the EU Delegation to UNCITRAL Working Group III on ISDS reform from 2017 to 2025.
       He is honorary fellow at the Law School of the University of Edinburgh. He has taught EU, WTO and investment law at IELPO, University of Barcelona and the Université catholique de Louvain.
       He holds an LLB from the University of Edinburgh, a Diploma in International Relations from the Bologna Center of the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University and an LLM in European Law from the College of Europe, Bruges.

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