The significance of the ‘best interests of the child’ principle in international investment law

 At first glance, the rights of children and the rights of foreign investors have little in common. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (hereinafter referred to as CRC)[1] was drafted in accordance with the recognition of the special care and assistance due to children in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and as a result of the identification of children as particularly vulnerable subjects in any legal system.[2] Investment treaties, on the other hand, respond to the need to protect the interests of corporations investing abroad, and are generally considered part of international economic law – a field of public international law aimed at regulating economic relations among states.[3] Considerations of children’s rights may therefore seem out of place in discussions on whether and how the interest of foreign investors should be protected from interferences from the very states they conduct their activities in.