Who is afraid of investor-state arbitration?: or comparative law?

The Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership has been creating expectations and stirring fears ever since it was announced by EU Commission President Barroso and US President Obama in mid-2013. The promise to boost trans-Atlantic economic exchange in the world’s largest free-trade area came along with the aim to “include investment… protection provisions based on the… highest standards of protection that both sides have negotiated to date”. But the reasons given by the EU Commission in favour of including investor state dispute settlement in the TTIP are weak and almost self-defeating. For the EU to sign investment agreements framed along the lines of existing BITs and without proper safeguards would fundamentally change the current law of the Union as regards state liability, especially for legislative acts.