Investment promotion is a key challenge in the global competition for foreign investment. International investment agreements (IIAs) are an element of investment promotion strategies as contracting parties seek to encourage foreign investment through the granting of investment protection. Notwithstanding the great importance of a stable and predictable international legal framework for attracting foreign investment, existing IIAs might not live up to their full potential as regards their investment promotion objective.Despite the fact that these agreements seek both investment promotion and protection, their content clearly focuses in the latter part with investment promotion primarily perceived as a side effect to investment protection. This paper is part of a series on International Investment Policies for Development and is addressed to Government officials, corporate executives, representatives of non-governmental organizations and officials of international agencies and researchers.