2 Calvo Doctrine and the South American mosaic

Chapter 2 addresses the current South American mosaic of states. Drawing on the theory of international regimes, Chapter 2 develops a typology that organizes states into four groups based upon the different behaviors which South American states have adopted in the last decades, towards the international investment regime and, precisely, towards the investor–state dispute settlement regime. As such, the typology categorizes states as members, states that are part of the regime and which have not substantially changed their attitude towards the regime (for instance, Argentina); confronters, namely, states that, without abandoning the international investment regime, came to adopt a different, more confrontational attitude towards it; outsider, to wit, the only state that has historically been located outside the regime (Brazil); and, dissidents, states that having been part of the regime withdrew from it (Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela). Chapter 2 explores the positions of South American states regarding the investor–state dispute settlement regime, their basis and the reasons that led to its manifestations in the present. It argues that historically South America has moved from resistance to accommodation and from accommodation to fragmentation in relation to the regime created by the US and Europe, leading to a three-color mosaic – members, the outsider, and dissidents. The chapter concludes that, despite being an outsider, Brazil is the only state in the region that has already taken steps to reshape the traditional regime.