A/70/301 health. In addition, in 2015, 10 mandate holders expressed public concern about the impact of investment and free trade agreements on human rig hts. 2 B. Overview of international investment and free trade agreements 10. International investment tends to be managed through treaty -based provisions within international law. There are a number of different mechanisms, known collectively as international investment agreements. International investment agreements are designed to protect foreign investors and their interests within States hosting investment projects. The three main types are: (a) Bilateral investment treaties, which are signed between two States and focus on investment; (b) Regional investment treaties that are signed between multiple countries within a region and also focus on investment; (c) Provisions within multilateral and plurilateral trade and investment agreements which contain clauses on both investment and free trade, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, the General Agreement on Trade in Services and the Energy Charter Treaty. 11. Those legal mechanisms, which constitute a primary source of public international law, first came into force in the late 1960s, before growing exponentially in the 1990s. At the end of 2014, there were 2,923 bilateral investment treaties and 345 other investment agreements in force, making the total number of international investment agreements 3,268. 3 The volume of bilateral investment treaties is decreasing, but the number of international investment agreements overall remains fairly stable owing to recent trends in investment provisions, equivalent to those commonly found within bilateral investment treaties, increasingly being included within broader free trade agreements. For example, the United States of America is concluding negotiations with countries from Asia for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, which includes investment features commonly found in bilateral investment treaties. The inclusion of investment management provisions within free trade agreements demonstrates the close links and shared neoliberal intellectual foundations of international investment and fre e trade. 12. The majority of investment treaties are negotiated between developing and developed countries. For example, 75 per cent of bilateral investment treaties are estimated to be between developing and developed countries. 4 However, the proportion of South-South investment agreements is growing. Developing countries enter into the agreements to open up their markets to foreign investors because of the expectation of jobs, investment and growth in gross domestic product (GDP). __________________ 2 3 4 6/24 Available from ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID= 16031&LangID=E. United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), “IIA issues note: recent trends in IIAs and ISDs” IIA issues notes, No. 1 (February 2015). Available from http://unctad.org/en/ PublicationsLibrary/webdiaepcb2015d1_en.pdf. Howard Mann, “International investment agreements, business and human rights: key issues and opportunities”, prepared by the International Institute for Sustainable Devel opment for John Ruggie, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the issue of human rights, transnational corporations and other business enterprises, February 2008. 15-12526