양자간 투자협정에 대한 미국의 정책

Since the beginning of the Carter Administration, the United States government has been engaged in a program of drafting, negotiating and concluding a series of bilateral investment treaties(BITs). These treaties are intended to protect United States investment in foreign countries. Although the initial target of the BITs was developing countries in the third world, the opening of Eastern Europe has led to BIT negotiations in that region as well. Negotiations also continue with developing countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia. The BITs have been negotiated from a series of model texts, at times referred to by negotiators as prototypes. Although deviations from the model texts appear in most of the signed BITs, all signed BITs are very similar in structure, form and substance. In this article it examines the methods through agreements and its development process which were utilized to protect United States investment in foreign countries, and analyzes United States investment protection policy regarding these issues. Also it analyzes the principal content of model negotiating text drafted by the United States government to negotiate the BITs and the principal provisions of the signed BITs with several countries since 1980s. Although all of the provisions play some role in the BIT's investment protections, the United States government regarded four principal provisions as the most important: treatment, expropriation, currency transfers and disputes provisions.