Protection of Foreign Investments in Türkiye under International Law: Alignments and Dissociations with International Tendencies

Abstract

Protection of foreign investments under international law is treaty-based. Investment treaties are mostly bilateral, i.e. they are concluded between two states and provide the investors of each contracting party rights to a minimum standard of treatment in the territory of the other contracting party. Foreign investments in Türkiye, too, are protected by bilateral investment treaties. Türkiye has concluded a total of 132 bilateral investment treaties with 113 different states. As of today, 82 of these bilateral investment treaties are in force. We examined all bilateral investment treaties that Türkiye has been party to, including those that have not entered into force yet and those that have entered into force but that were subsequently terminated. We, thus, sought to determine how Türkiye established and developed its bilateral investment treaty network. In order to get a complete picture of the establishment and development of the Turkish network, we compared it with international tendencies of bilateral investment treaty network establishment programmes. As a result of this comparison, we determined that Türkiye’s bilateral investment treaty network mostly aligned with international tendencies, especially between 1960 and 2000. We observed that Türkiye behaved more like developing and transition economies in this time period; hence it first concluded investment treaties with investment exporting states. However, we remarked a dissociation from international tendencies in the 2010s. As a result of our examination of the Turkish bilateral investment treaty practice in the 2010s, we made the following findings: Türkiye did not align with the tendency to withdraw from the network of investment treaties, a tendency popular among developing and transition economies, and it mostly dissociated from the tendency to replace existing investment treaties with new generation treaties, a tendency pioneered by developed economies.

Keywords

• foreign investment
• international investment agreement
• international law
• investment arbitration
• international arbitration

Türkiye’deki Yabancı Yatırımların Milletlerarası Hukukta Korunması: Milletlerarası Temayüllerle Uyuşma ve Ayrışmalar

Abstract

Yabancı yatırımlar milletlerarası hukukta devletlerin akdettikleri iki taraflı yatırım anlaşmalarıyla korunur. Türkiye’deki yabancı yatırımlar da milletlerararası hukukta Türkiye’nin taraf olduğu iki taraflı yatırım anlaşmalarıyla korunur. Türkiye bugüne kadar 113 devletle, toplam 132 adet iki taraflı yatırım anlaşmasına taraf olmuştur. Bunlardan 82’si hâlihazırda yürürlüktedir ve Türkiye’deki yabancı yatırımların milletlerarası hukukta korunmasına temel teşkil eder. Çalışmamızda Türkiye’nin bugüne kadar taraf olduğu yatırım anlaşmalarının tamamını inceledik. İncelememize yalnızca yürürlükteki yatırım anlaşmalarını değil, taraf olunmuş olmasına rağmen yürürlüğe hiç girmemiş anlaşmaları ve yürürlüğe girmiş olmasına rağmen sonradan yürürlüğüne son verilmiş anlaşmaları da dâhil ettik. Böylece Türkiye’nin yatırım anlaşmaları ağını nasıl oluşturup, geliştirdiğini tespit etmeyi amaçladık. Türkiye’nin yatırım anlaşmaları ağının oluşum ve gelişiminin tam bir resmini görebilmek adına da dünyadaki yerini tayin etmeye gayet ettik. Bu amaçla, Türkiye’nin yatırım anlaşmaları ağını oluşturma ve geliştirme çalışmalarını, bu alanda dünyada hâkim olan genel temayüllerle karşılaştırdık. Bu karşılaştırma sonucunda Türkiye’nin, özellikle 1960-2000 tarihleri arasında, dünyada hâkim olan temayüllere uygun davrandığını, bu zaman diliminde çoğunlukla gelişmekte olan ekonomilere ve geçiş ekonomilerine sahip devletler gibi davrandığını, bu kapsamda öncelikle geleneksel olarak yatırım ihraççısı devletlerle yatırım anlaşmaları imzaladığını tayin ettik. 2010’lu yıllardan itibaren ise dünyada hâkim olan temayüllerle ayrışan kimi uygulamalarının olduğunu gördük. 2010’lu yıllardaki anlaşmalara dair incelemelerimiz sonucunda şu tespitleri yaptık; bu tarihlerde Türkiye, gelişmekte olan ve geçiş ekonomilerine sahip devletler arasında hâkim olan, yatırım anlaşmaları ağından çıkma temayülüne dâhil olmadığı gibi; gelişmiş ekonomilere sahip devletlerin önayak oldukları, mevcut yatırım anlaşmalarının yeni kuşak yatırım anlaşmaları ile değiştirilmesi temayülünün de büyük ölçüde dışında kalmıştır.

Keywords

• yabancı yatırım
• milletlerarası yatırım anlaşması
• milletlerarası hukuk
• yatırım tahkimi
• milletlerarası tahkim

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