Under bilateral and multilateral treaties, investors receive protection for their international investments through arbitration. States wishing to encourage foreign investment undertake to apply fair treatment to the investors of the countries with which they have entered into such treaties. Over 2,000 such treaties are currently in force.
These Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) cases involve questions of international law, including rights granted under human rights treaties, as discussed in this 2023 article. For international motion picture and television companies in particular, the interaction of investment protection and human rights obligations is an important and under-studied field.