Staff Information

Kyla Tienhaara has a B.Sc. (honours) in environmental science from the University of British Columbia, a M.Sc. in environmental science and law from the University of Nottingham, and recently completed her PhD at the Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She joined RegNet in April 2008.

Professional Activities

My research is on the relationship between legal agreements that protect foreign investors and environmental regulation, particularly in developing countries. My PhD mainly focused on inter-state agreements which provide protection for foreign investors (e.g. bilateral investment treaties). Such agreements allow foreign investors to sue host states in international arbitration for the introduction of new regulation (including environmental regulation) that has a negative impact on an investment project. My current project looks in more depth at foreign investment contracts (also referred to as “host government agreements”, “development agreements”, or “state contracts”), which are agreements made directly between a foreign investor (often a multinational corporation) and a government or a state-owned entity acting on behalf of its government. The aim of the project is to assess the implications of foreign investment contracts for sustainable development. This includes analysis of not only the substantiv e content of contracts but also an investigation into the ways in which they are negotiated and enforced. My focus is on foreign investment contracts in the extractive industries in the Asia Pacific region.

Selected Publications

Tienhaara, K. 2008. Unilateral Commitments to Investment Protection: Does the Promise of Stability Restrict Environmental Policy Development? Yearbook of International Environmental Law 17: 139-167.

Tienhaara, K. 2007. Third-Party Participation in Investment-Environment Disputes: Recent Developments. Review of European Community and International Environmental Law 16(2): 230-242.

Tienhaara, K. 2006. Mineral Investment and the Regulation of the Environment in Developing Countries: Lessons from Ghana. International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics 6(4): 371-394.

Tienhaara, K. 2006. What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You: Investor-State Disputes and the Environment. Global Environmental Politics 6(4): 73-100.