Abstract: Investment, particularly cross-border investment, is an unavoidable aspect of many economic sectors. Many countries lack the necessary domestic capital to fund their own business ventures, and thus require outside sources to finance their private sector. However, these same countries (most of which are former Eastern Bloc countries and developing countries) can often be prone to instability, internal divisions and sudden changes of policy by the country’s highest authorities. During the 20th century, many examples of countries nationalizing industries or expropriating specific businesses can be observed. Domestic regulations and limits on such activities do not always suffice. Domestic law, after all, can always be changed to suit the whims of the current leadership. Given that cross-border investment typically involves a very substantial amount of capital, foreign investment is a massive risk for investors. Hence, a need developed to provide a more substantial form of protection, especially through international investment treaties. In the author’s particular case, the investment treaty in question is the Energy Charter Treaty, a highly influential agreement concerning the energy sector. The Energy Charter Treaty emerged after the end of the Cold War in the 1990’s and came into force on April 12, 1998. During that time, European states found that they had robust economies, but lacked energy resources, while Russia and other post-Soviet states had energy resources, but lacked investment to rebuild their economy. Developing nations had a desire to modernize their energy sector while energy resources were and are one of the few sources of reliable, direct, foreign currency for these countries. This created the need for a new, mutual energy- and capital-based relationship, and so an international framework regulating foreign energy investment in this field of economy was deemed necessary to achieve this. There were some precedents to this treaty. These precedents include the European Energy Charter. Its signing finally happened on 17 December 1991 in The Hague which showed a remarkably rapid pace of negotiations. The Dutch Prime Minister Lubbers’ call was only in 1990, and yet the Commission finished its proposal, the European Union called its conference, and already a resolution of sorts was reached in a year’s time. However, it must be stressed that this was a non-binding agreement that contained a set of guidelines, protocols as well as signposts, for the negotiation of the future Energy Charter Treaty. Despite it having only 15 signatories and being a non-binding agreement consisting of mostly polity goals and general goodwill, the Charter foreshadowed the increased negotiations to develop a more comprehensive and universal energy charter. Seeking to expand the protections of the Energy Charter to countries outside of Europe, these signatories began negotiating for a broader agreement that would include more nations. Much of the provisions in the European Energy Charter are included in the Energy Charter Treaty. Based on the latter mentioned the European Energy Charter can be considered the immediate predecessor of the Energy Charter Treaty. Despite its lax and ultimately non-binding nature, lack of precise rules, and being mostly based on hazy expressions of interest in further cooperation for mutual prosperity, the European Energy Charter can still be considered an important milestone, a landmark for the development of cooperation in the field of energy and investment. Formal negotiations for the Energy Charter Treaty began in 1992, as some negotiation al-ready took place by the time of the signing of the non-binding European Energy Charter. The negotiating process was hampered by numerous struggles and problems, such as different perspectives between Western and Eastern countries, as well as differing opinions and conflicts within the OECD membership itself. All of these conflicts significantly lengthened the negotiation period. In general, the goal of the Energy Charter Treaty is to provide a comprehensive and holistic legal framework for the production, transport, and delivery of energy products. It is a synthesis of what bilateral energy treaties were trying to achieve in the first place, such as definitions of what an investor is, safeguard clauses, and the proper method of settling disputes. This synthesis allows it to achieve a uniquely important position when it comes to energy-related investments. It is also necessary to address the International Energy Charter. This 2015 treaty belongs to the same ‘family’ as the Energy Charter Treaty. However, this was mainly a political declaration, and not a proper, extensive treaty like the Energy Charter Treaty. It is not considered legally binding, and mostly contains declarations of intent. As such, the author felt it unnecessary to focus on it, since the provisions with actual, observable and quantifiable real-world effects are the provisions of the Energy Charter Treaty. The particular focus of this research is thus the Energy Charter Treaty and the related case law. In studying this, the author used a wide variety of methods and examined the theoretical and practical (such as case law) aspects of the treaty’s investment protection segments thoroughly. The objective being to uncover the treaty’s potential application to Iraq by measuring its comprehensiveness, advantageousness and efficacy.