Abstract

This article identifies the principal signs forming the language of investment law and arbitration, isolating for each of them its signifier and its signified in light of how such signs are used by arbitrators, practitioners and scholars. In light of this analysis, investment arbitration is assessed from a semiotic standpoint in order to verify whether it is possible, under this perspective, to consider international investment law as a multilateralised branch of international law, with a common language, customs and rules rightly referred to by international arbitral tribunals, or if the term “international investment law” is merely a conventional expression that simply groups together a plurality of micro-systems with no significant link among each other to justify the arbitrators' establishment of a de facto system of precedent and the constant reference to a non-existent body of international law rules on foreign investment.