Soumrak BIT v EU?
The Twilight of BITS in the European Union?

Summary/Abstract: The paper analyses current EU competences in the area of Common Trade Policy after the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty. It also looks into the manners in which these competences have been seized by the European Commission in the area of investment protection. After a concise historical overview of foreign property protection and generally accepted positive discrimination in favour of business-making foreigners, the paper reviews the most frequently used arguments of the Commission rejecting validity of intra-EU BITs after the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty. The paper generally deals with the relation between international law and EU law, shortly touches upon issues of extra-EU BITs and their possible replacement by Investment Chapters in Free Trade Agreements, and attempts to answer the question whether the above-mentioned transfer of competences is beneficial to the Czech Republic.

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