U.S.- Jordan Bilateral Investment Treaty

U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Jordanian Foreign Minister Dr. Marwan Muasher exchanged today, Tuesday, May 13, 2003, instruments of ratification for a Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) between their two countries. This exchange will bring the treaty into full force after a period of 30 days.

On July 2, 1997, the United States and Jordan signed a “Treaty Concerning the Encouragement and Reciprocal Protection of Investment.” The agreement was ratified by the Jordanian Parliament in 1998 and by the U.S. Senate in 2000.

The Treaty provides Jordanian investors in the United States and U.S. investors in Jordan with the highest standard of international protection for the security of their investments.

In particular, the Treaty affords national treatment to investors in the partner countries, ensuring that U.S. companies in Jordan and Jordanian companies in the United States are treated as favorably as their competitors. It also imposes limits on expropriation and compensation for expropriation, guarantees of free transfer of earnings from investments, and affords investors recourse to internationally accepted dispute settlement mechanisms.

The treaty is the most recent in a series of groundbreaking economic agreements between the U.S. and Jordan. These include a bilateral Free Trade Agreement and a state of the art “Open Skies” civil aviation agreement.

The Treaty underscores U.S. support for Jordan’s continuing efforts under the leadership of King Abdullah to transform its economy, to increase the role of the private sector, and to create an investor-friendly business climate.

• Although signed in July of 1997, the American Jordanian Bilateral Investment Treaty was ratified by the Jordanian Parliament in 1998 and by the United States Senate in October 2000. On February 7, 2001, President Bush signed the Instrument of Ratification completing the domestic ratification of the treaty. In reconciling the translations of the documents in preparation for the final exchange of Instruments of Ratification needed to bring the Treaty into force, the governments of the United States and Jordan discovered a number of technical discrepancies between their respective versions of the Treaty. The process in addressing these technicalities has taken some time, but all matters have been resolved to the satisfaction of both parties.