Foreign investment in countries where human rights violations and political repression are rampant can be a great way to change the policies of those governments. Unfortunately, what is actually happening is that human rights violations and political repression are being intensified precisely to attract investment. You should be able to have investors state initially during any negotiations, that, for instance, the regime commits to adhere to things like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and state that all investments will be reviewed at the end of a, say, 3 year period; and if the regime has not been found to comply with human rights standards, all projects will be suspended. In my opinion, that should be stipulated in international law, and not left to the discretion of individual investors.
But again, what we are seeing is that regimes are literally increasing in repression for the sake of “boosting investor confidence”, because investors like the stability that repression creates, and the opportunities that impoverishment provides. They like for governments to abandon their functions and to dissolve the social contract with the population. In their view, the public is not to be represented or served or placated, but rather only to be policed.