Reconfiguring Sovereignty: NAFTA Chapter 11 Dispute Settlement Procedures and the Issue of Public-Private Authority

Abstract. This article focuses on the claim that authority is shifting from public into private hands. To partially test that thesis it examines the procedures for settling disputes under NAFTA Chapter 11 (itself an example of the broader category of investor-state provisions found in bilateral investment agreements and some international conventions). The article detects evidence of a delegation or transfer of public authority to private …