In this introduction to the Special Issue "Empirical Studies on Investment Disputes", we offer a new heuristic model to structure the thinking about investment arbitration. Investment arbitration is presented here as a political system in a sense inspired by David Easton's landmark theory: it transforms the input of key actors (namely states, investors, arbitrators, and arbitration institutions) into output (namely arbitral awards taken in the aggregate), with feedback loops from output to input, leading to or calling for adjustments or other reactions from these actors. We use this model to review some of the leading existing research and bring together key insights offered by the contributions to the issue.

中文翻译：

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迈向新的启发式模型：作为政治制度的投资仲裁

在本期特刊“投资争端实证研究”的介绍中，我们提供了一种新的启发式模型来构建投资仲裁的思维。从大卫·伊斯顿的里程碑式理论的启发下，投资仲裁在这里被视为一种政治制度：它将关键参与者（即国家、投资者、仲裁员和仲裁机构）的输入转化为输出（即仲裁裁决的总和），从输出到输入的反馈循环，导致或要求这些参与者做出调整或其他反应。我们使用这个模型来回顾一些领先的现有研究，并汇集了对该问题的贡献所提供的关键见解。