International Investment Instruments: A Compendium contains a collection of international instruments relating to foreign direct investment (FDI) and transnational corporations (TNCs). The collection is presented in fourteen volumes. The first three volumes were published in 1996. Volumes IV and V were published in 2000 followed by Volume VI in 2001. Volumes VII, VIII IX and X were published in 2002. Volumes XI and XII were published in 2003. The present publication comprises volumes XIII and XIV.
The Compendium is meant to be a collection of instruments, not an anthology of relevant provisions. Indeed, to understand a particular instrument, it is normally necessary to take its entire text into consideration. An effort has been made, therefore, to reproduce complete instruments, even though, in a number of cases, reasons of space and relevance have dictated the inclusion of excerpts. Owing to their size, annexes containing the list of reservations and exceptions are excluded in many cases. The excerpts are meant to reflect all provisions directly relevant to investment in an international agreement. There are other provisions that have an indirect bearing on investment but are not covered in the Compendium. Therefore all legal provisions related to investment should be viewed in the context of the whole agreement.
The UNCTAD secretariat has deliberately refrained from adding its own commentary to the texts reproduced in the Compendium. The only exception being the introductory boxes added to each instrument. They provide some basic facts, such as date of adoption, date of entry into force and, where appropriate, signatory countries. Also, in the case of agreements signed between the EFTA countries or the EC countries with third countries or regional groups - where only a few samples of the types of agreements with investment-related provisions are included -- a list of similar agreements signed by these two groups of countries has been included to give an indication of the range of countries involved in these types of agreements. Moreover, to facilitate the identification of each instrument in the table of contents, additional information has been added, in brackets, next to each title, on the year of its signature and, if applicable, the name of the relevant institution involved.
