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The MERCOSUR agreement, “Colonia Protocol on the Reciprocal Promotion<br />

and Protection of Investments within MERCOSUR”, should regulate the mutual investment<br />

conditions for foreign investors from MERCOSUR countries within the four<br />

MERCOSUR states. As a regional FTA the therein contained regulations do not have<br />

any effect on non-MERCOSUR states. The MFN clause does not extend its validity<br />

to third parties, as with bilateral investment treaties.<br />

The “Buenos Aires Protocol on the Promotion and Protection of Investments<br />

Made by Countries That are not Parties to MERCOSUR” from August 5, 1995,<br />

however, has a special position within these treaties: Being a regional agreement on<br />

investment, it treats the role of third parties and can therefore, after its ratification,<br />

have legal consequences for other Brazilian agreements or those of other MERCO-<br />

SUR states- by, e.g., causing a chain reaction in the tightly integrated net of existing<br />

investment agreements. Therefore, a study commissioned by the Brazilian National<br />

Congress recommended, that if bilateral investment treaties were to be ratified, then<br />

this agreement should be ratified first, so that its provisions can have legal effects on<br />

all following agreements. 287<br />

All of these agreements follow the scheme of modern bilateral investment<br />

agreements and contain dispute settlement mechanisms, also for investor-to-state<br />

disputes and the party taking legal action can freely choose the court of jurisdiction.<br />

One exception to this is the MERCOSUR-protocol, which also concedes the investor<br />

the right to choose, but the other parties (the affected state) can reject this. All agreements<br />

explicitly take the principles of MFN and NT as an orientation, and regulate the<br />

unrestricted capital and profit transfer, which cannot be obstructed by any national<br />

regulations: In the case of severe difficulties with its balance of payments the Brazilian<br />

government would be prohibited from taking any action to steer or influence the<br />

crisis, due to the international treaty.<br />

The agreement with Switzerland, which is signed, but not yet ratified, goes further<br />

than other agreements: It is the only agreement which explicitly states that compensation<br />

payments have to be made in freely convertible currency. According to a<br />

study commissioned by the Brazilian Congress this could be in contradiction to the<br />

287 Déborah Bithiah de Azevedo: Os acordos para a promoção e a proteção recíproca de investimentos assinados<br />

pelo Brasil, Consultoria Legislativa, Câmara dos Deputados, May 2001, p. 5.<br />

99

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