A/HRC/33/42 agreements and rights. In her final report, she will reflect on the standards of protections that those agreements afford and contextualize them in the light of developments in international human rights law and the sustainable development agenda as they pertain to indigenous peoples. 7. In doing so, the Special Rapporteur seeks to promote coherence in international investment law and international human rights law and ensure that State fulfilment of duties pertaining to indigenous peoples’ rights is not obstructed by protections afforded to investors. B. Overview of international investment agreements 8. The international investment regime consists of 3,268 international investment agreements, comprising almost 3,000 bilateral investment treaties and more than 300 investment chapters of bilateral or regional free trade agreements.1 These agreements, between States, provide legal protections to investors of “home States” for their investments in “host States”. 9. International investment agreements tend to follow a standard format, with provisions on: prohibiting expropriation or “regulatory taking” without compensation; national treatment or non-discrimination, meaning that foreign investors are treated no less favourably than domestic investors; “most favoured nation treatment”, requiring the same standard of treatment available to other foreign investors; “fair and equitable treatment”, or “minimum international standards of treatment”, which can be very broad in scope, generally including protection of investors’ “legitimate expectations”; 2 and full protection and security for investments. 10. International investment agreements also typically provide investors with access to an investor-State dispute settlement process, whereby investors can bring arbitration cases against a host State for alleged failures to protect their investments in accordance with the provisions in the agreements. There is generally no obligation to exhaust domestic remedies or appeals system, and minimal transparency or opportunities for third-party intervention. Awards are enforceable through the acquisition of a State’s overseas assets, are not subject to any financial limitations and can run into billions of dollars. 11. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), cancellations or alleged violations of contracts and revocation or denial of licences are among the most commonly challenged State actions, with approximately 30 per cent of all settlements relating to the extractive and energy industries, which account for most new investments.3 The majority of such cases are taken against States with significant populations of indigenous peoples in whose territories the exploited mineral, energy or forest resources are located. 12. Recent years have seen a growing number of megaregional free trade agreements, with scopes that extend far beyond trade to include investment and regulatory dimensions, 1 2 3 4 See United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), “Recent trends in international investment agreements and investor-State disputes”, International Investment Agreement – Issues Note (February 2015), available from http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/webdiaepcb2015d1_en.pdf. See UNCTAD, Fair and Equitable Treatment, Series on Issues in International Investment Agreements II (New York, 2012), available from http://unctad.org/en/Docs/unctaddiaeia2011d5_en.pdf. See UNCTAD, “Recent trends”.