Skip to main navigation Skip to main content Skip to page footer

UNCTAD UNIVERSITY IIA MAPPING PROJECT

The UNCTAD University IIA Mapping Project was a collaborative initiative between UNCTAD and universities worldwide to comprehensively map the contents of all international investment agreements (IIAs) for which texts are available, i.e. the about 3,000 Bilateral Investment Treaties and investment chapters of Free Trade Agreements, and record these mappings in a searchable database. This database serves as a tool for policymakers, researchers and other investment and development stakeholders to understand trends in IIA drafting, assess the prevalence of different policy approaches and identify treaty examples.

The mapping of IIAs is completed by students at different universities throughout the world. During the UNCTAD University IIA Mapping Project students have the opportunity to collaborate with mapping partners, other students from various universities, to complete the IIA mappings. You can see a complete list of the Project’s university partners here. Students are also able to directly apply their knowledge from coursework into analyzing and categorizing IIAs. For more information on the project, see the Mapping Project Description & Methodology. The Project is coordinated and overseen by a team supervised by Ms. Elisabeth Tuerk, Chief of the IIA Section at UNCTAD.

The UNCTAD University IIA Mapping Project has been running for four years now and has been able to map over 2000 IIAs over the course of five mapping segments. The first segment was held from January through May 2013. The fifth mapping segment concluded in June 2016. The sixth mapping segment recently started in September 2016 wherein more than 180 students from 32 universities in 23 different countries are participating. During this current sixth segment, approximately 750 BITs are estimated to be mapped by students in the following languages: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Arabic, Chinese, Italian and Russian.

The Faculty of Law of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens participates in the current sixth segment of the UNCTAD University IIA Mapping Project, and the students who contribute to the Project, under the academic supervision of Lecturer Anastasios Gourgourinis, are: Maria – Eleni Chrysanthakopoulou, Vasileios Katsampas, Athina Kotsia, Georgios Kouvaras, Antigoni Matthaiou, Lamprini Mavromatidi, Varvara Metallinou, Aliki-Athina Papanastasiou, Styliani Perantakou, Panagiota Skiathiti, Evgenia Stavropoulou, Marios Tokas and Charalampia Tzimi.