Wto Agreements and International Investment Guarantees: Benchmarks for Updating Russia’s Investment Legislation

The article examines Russia’s place within the global public-international-law framework governing investments and assesses how participation in the World Trade Organization drives the transformation of the national investment regime. It demonstrates that shifts in capital flows amid re-industrialization coincide with the tightening of extraterritorial anti-corruption and fiscal requirements imposed by developed states, thereby increasing the salience of investment legislation. The analysis substantiates the structuring role of treaty and institutional components—namely the General Agreement on Trade in Services, the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, the Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures, and the activities of international financial organizations and guarantee mechanisms—in establishing equal and fair conditions of competition in capital and services markets. The study identifies systemic gaps in Russia’s integration into the international system of investment protection arising from the non-ratification of the Washington Convention and the unsettled position on the Energy Charter Treaty, as well as the insufficient development of enforcement and arbitral dispute-resolution procedures in the financial-services market. The paper formulates benchmarks for “third-generation” legislative modernization: abandoning the division between foreign and domestic investments, prioritizing national treatment and non-discrimination, steadily liberalizing market access for service suppliers, strengthening enforcement and effective dispute settlement, and ensuring investors’ access to international legal guarantees.