Since the second edition of this book, the international law on foreign investment has witnessed such enormous activity that a new edition is justified within five years. The number of arbitration awards based on investment treaties has increased, resulting in several books written solely on the subject of investment treaty arbitration. New works have appeared on several aspects of the law on foreign investment. This work has held the area of the law together without fragmenting it any further. The carving out of an international law on foreign investment itself may have furthered fragmentation in international law. Yet, the aim was to ensure that the base remained clearly in international law principles. That aim does not appear to have been preserved in many of the later works which sought to carve out further areas as free-standing ones. The original niche of this work remains unaffected. It seeks to establish the foundations of the law clearly in the international law rules on state responsibility and dispute resolution rather than approach it with the central focus on investment treaties and arbitration which seems to have attracted the practitioner more than the scholar.

It also has a focus that is different from that of the other works in the field. It is written from the perspective of development. The claim to neutrality of the works in the field cloaks the fact that they deal with an asymmetrical system of the law created largely to ensure investment protection.