Public-Law and Private-Law Elements in Political Risk Insurance: The Place of the Seoul Convention in the System of Sources

This article examines the legal nature of political risk insurance within the multilateral investment guarantee framework established by the 1985 Seoul Convention, focusing on the interplay between public-law and private-law elements of regulation. It demonstrates that the contractual provision of guarantees to an investor is combined with an international-law logic of subsequent claims against the host State, once the right of claim is transferred to the guaranteeing entity following compensation payment, which produces a hybrid pattern in both the subject matter and the modalities of legal protection. The study substantiates the role of an international organization as a procedural intermediary that reduces the conflict potential of investment disagreements and channels them into pre-established dispute-settlement procedures, while preserving the commercial substance of the underlying claims. It further clarifies the place of the Seoul Convention within the system of sources governing foreign investment as a treaty instrument that shapes institutional and procedural conditions for legal certainty of the guarantee regime and for balancing the interests of the State and the investor.