Highlights

This paper analyses the legal and policy options surrounding the admission and establishment of foreign direct investment by transnational corporations into host countries. This topic raises questions that are central to international investment agreements in general. In particular, the degree of control or openness that a host country might adopt in relation to the admission of foreign direct investment is a central issue. The purpose of this paper is to describe and assess the kinds of policy options that have emerged from the process of foreign-direct-investment growth and host country responses thereto in national laws and, more importantly, in bilateral, regional, plurilateral and multilateral investment agreements.