The discussion within UNCITRAL Working Group III (WG III) on counterclaims has still remained, to a certain extent, deadlocked, as opposed to discussions on other topics under the table. As a result, the UNCITRAL Secretariat has been put (at least) until now in the unfortunate position of being unable to bring a coherent package of…

A cursory reading of the mandate of Working Group III reveals that the discussion at UNCITRAL of ISDS (Investor-State Dispute Settlement) reform focuses only on procedural aspects of dispute settlement under investment treaties and excludes any substantive aspects. However, the topic of respondent states’ counterclaims, albeit procedural in itself, is so inextricably intertwined with substantive…

  The present analysis critically focuses on some aspects of the Opinion on the intra-EU BITs issued by AG Wathelet in the Achmea case (Case C-284/16) in September 2017. The Opinion has been extensively commented on in previously published posts on this blog. As such posts have noted, the AG’s position that intra-EU BITs are…