Travelling the National Route: South Africa's Protection of Investment Act 2015

With the 2015 Protection Investment Act, the pendulum of the rights and obligations in the field of foreign investment has swung decisively in favour of the state. Balancing private and public rights and obligations is more than legitimate, as is switching from international treaties to domestic legislation. What is not convincing is the necessity of the drastic reduction of foreign investors’ substantive and procedural rights realised by the Act. It is argued that a better equilibrium could have been achieved by adjusting the existing level of legal protection for foreign investors, either by amending or even renegotiating existing treaties, or by the adoption of domestic legislation properly protecting the interest of foreign investors while preserving the capacity of South Africa to fully exercise its sovereign prerogatives.