A Sleeping Sword – Protection for Japanese Corporations Investing Outside of Japan -

A Guide to International Investment Agreements -

Introduction -

Over the past twenty years, International Investment Agreements (“IIAs”) have become an increasingly popular and valuable tool for investors to manage their foreign investment risk.

Japan signed its first Bilateral Investment Treaty with Egypt in 1978 and since then has concluded a further 26. It is also a party to numerous Free Trade Agreements and Economic Partnership Agreements, including the recent, and more controversial, Trans-Pacific Partnership. Yet despite the increasing trend for foreign investors to enforce their treaty rights through investor-state arbitration, Japanese investors have been a reluctant claimant, commencing just two of the 739 known claims.