'Judge Knot' explores the biggest and the most controversial success story in international law: investor-state dispute settlement, or ISDS. Since 1990, investors have launched hundreds of claims against government regulation. This exclusive inside look explains what makes the system tick: its poorly understood centuries-old origins, why corporations demand investment law solutions to political problems, how arbitrators supply these solutions, and why the system lasts despite the many politicians and citizens unhappy with it. Building off of an unprecedented set of interviews with the arbitrators who actually decide the cases, 'Judge Knot' brings together the best of political science, law and development economics scholarship and offers a concrete alternative to ISDS that leverages what works about the system and discards what does not, so that international law can be more supportive of democracy and development goals.

In recent decades, international legal constraints have shifted far beyond the national border. International lenders' structural adjustment programs require states to slash budgets, privatize public enterprises and cut pensions. Trade agreements have shifted from locking in low tariffs to forbidding policies that today's rich countries used to climb up the developmental ladder. This suite of neoliberal policies has been labeled the "golden straitjacket" for their supposed promise of unlocking economic growth. [NP] 'Judge Knot' explores a corollary to the straitjacket: investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), where foreign investors can sue host states out of national courts before transnational tribunals over government regulation. Since 1990, corporations have launched hundreds of cases against states over environmental conservation, financial stabilization and public service provision. In an era of Donald Trump, Brexit, Bernie Sanders, and Jeremy Corbyn, criticism of this system has grown enormously. Yet meaningful reform has been difficult. Even though neoliberal economics is on the wane, its legal underpinnings remain attractive to the corporations that demand investment law and the arbitrators who supply it.

Building off of an unprecedented set of interviews with the arbitrators who actually decide the cases, the interdisciplinary 'Judge Knot' brings together the best of political science, law and development economics scholarship to offer a historical institutionalist account of investment arbitration in an era of unprecedented judicialization of international affairs. The book offers concrete alternatives to ISDS that leverage what works about the system and discard what doesn't, so that international law can be more supportive of democracy and development goals.