«Taylor St John's book of course is also what I would call a necessary read for anyone lacking my fascination for archives but who is still involved in the investor-state arbitration field from a policy-related perspective...Perhaps the most important lesson from the invaluable research and fascinating account by Taylor St John is that we should all be careful to accept arguments or opinions at face value. In short, we all need to do our homework...So thank you Taylor St John for opening the doors to the archives, and for making us better equipped to join the conversation for the future.»

Annette Magnusson, Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, Stockholm, Journal of

«How can we explain one of the most puzzling and controversial international law regimes of our time: investor-state dispute settlement? Based on painstaking archival research and interviews, St John goes beyond the narrative that capital importing countries, pushed by corporate greed and investor lobbying, signed on to investment treaties without knowing what they got into. Instead, she demonstrates that well-meaning international bureaucrats, at the World Bank, were largely behind the emergence of this exceptional regime with, also for them, unintended consequences. The book offers a captivating story of how international institutions matter and how innocent, incremental steps can create a path dependent Frankenstein that may be difficult to control or reform.»

Joost Pauwelyn, Professor of International Law, Graduate Institute of International and Development

«Investment treaties are under fire - in Brussels, in Washington, and around the world. As billionaire investors use ISDS to extract millions from governments, critics describe the process as toxic and embodying runaway globalization. Taylor St John offers a lively and balanced account of how ISDS came into being. Drawing on thousands of original documents, and dozens of interviews, she takes us inside ISDSs founding moments, revealing that this was not a hyper-globalizers conspiracy.»

Ngaire Woods, Professor of Global Economic Governance, University of Oxford

«The world has, in recent years, woken up to Investor-State Dispute Settlement, which is viewed by many as a corporate assault on the sovereign rights of developed and developing countries alike. In her fascinating and meticulous book, Taylor St. John unearths the origins of ISDS, showing how a group of idealistic mid-twentieth century international civil servants planted the seeds of a system that would over time draw in national governments, international investors, and lawyers into the controversial practice we know today. St. John's book employs both cutting-edge international relations theory and painstaking archival research to illuminate how the world came, incrementally and unexpectedly, to adopt a system that is both deeply entrenched and widely reviled.»

Mark Pollack, Professor of Political Science and Law, Temple University