The previous chapters have indicated how efforts have been made through diplomatic means and through treaty means to bring about the protection of foreign investment. Diplomatic means are the older of the two. There are definite rules on the basis of which diplomatic intervention to protect the interests of the foreign investor could be made. They are the genesis of what some states regard as customary international law. Where diplomatic intercession fails, the same rules become the basis on which litigation could be brought against the recalcitrant state before an international tribunal or the International Court of Justice. There have been very few cases that have been brought before the International Court of Justice or its predecessor. Where a large number of foreign investment disputes arise from a single incident, states may choose to set up Claims Commissions to deal with them. In these circumstances, an international tribunal is established pursuant to an instrument akin to a treaty with clear means of enforcing the awards it makes.

Investment treaties, as has been seen, have also devised their own methods of dispute settlement. They usually enable the foreign investor to invoke remedies through arbitration at his own instance, the state being taken to have expressed its consent through the treaty provision. In a sense, an attempt has thus been made to create a regime of investment protection. But, in the absence of a multilateral treaty, such a regime will not come about.