Mongolia is a country rich in natural resources. Its estimated mineral wealth is $1-3 trillion, with coal, copper, and gold making up the primary reserves. Having been so well endowed by Mother Earth, Mongolia would seem to be an obvious choice for international investors with capital and expertise to exploit these valuable opportunities. However, the…
On 29 November 2023, Professor Kiran N. Gore (The George Washington University Law School) moderated the “signature panel” of the Fourth Washington Arbitration Week (“WAW”), which focused on the interplay between judgments of the International Court of Justice (“ICJ”)/ Permanent Court of International Justice (“PCIJ”) and investor-State dispute settlement (“ISDS”). The program bridged and expanded…
India ADR Week (“IAW“) 2023 was hosted by the Mumbai Centre for International Arbitration (“MCIA“) across three cities – Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai. Gathering over 700 attendees from a cross-section of the arbitration community, IAW featured more than 40 events over six days in a series of in-person and virtual panels. The breadth and diversity…
It was 8:45 am in Santiago de Chile on August 30, 2023, and the Centro de Arbitraje y Mediación de la Cámara de Comercio de Santiago’s – CAM Santiago venue was full for the seminar “Tendencies in Investment Arbitration in Latin-America: Current Issues and Challenges.” Among attendants were academics, practitioners, government officials, and arbitrators, who…
Another year ends with set records for investment arbitration in Latin America. ICSID reported that, out of the new forty-five registered cases, twenty-one were brought against Latin American and Caribbean states (the annual report covers the fiscal year from July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023). In other words, almost fifty percent of the new…
Some of the largest arbitral awards rendered in favour of investors have been based on tax-related (mis)conduct of host states towards investors, e.g., a series of Yukos and others v Russia – US$ 50 billion (the largest award ever rendered), Occidental v Ecuador (II) – US$ 1.77 billion, Cairn v India – excess of US$…
“Corporations have their own global private court system – called ISDS – which they use to bully governments. But many victims of corporate human rights abuses don’t have any way of winning justice. This is unfair. We need to end these corporate courts now! Rights for people, rules for corporations.” Letter from the Stop ISDS…
In the case of Santamarta v Venezuela, the dispute involved a dual national of Venezuela and Spain, who filed a claim against Venezuela for allegedly obstructing Santamarta’s pharmaceutical business, including an unlawful confiscation of a manufacturing plant. The arbitration proceedings were conducted in accordance with the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules (1976) on the basis of the…
When the USMCA entered into force on 1 July 2020, the general view was that the agreement would limit the ability of investors to file investment arbitration claims because the new rules offered limited access to the ISDS mechanism compared with NAFTA. Furthermore, investors from Canada and the U.S. face an additional restriction as ISDS…
In 2013, Deutsche Telekom AG (“DT”), a German corporation, commenced an UNCITRAL arbitration in Switzerland under the Germany-India BIT claiming that India had (amongst other things) breached the fair and equitable treatment (“FET”) standard. In the arbitration, India raised various jurisdictional objections, which the Tribunal rejected in an Interim Award issued on 13 December 2017….
On 1 December 2022, the Tribunal in the Panamericana Television S.A (hereafter, “Pantel” or “Claimant”) v. The Republic of Peru (hereafter, “Peru” or “Respondent”) case issued its Final Award, in which not only did it reject the merits of Pantel’s claims, but it also dismissed, among others, the objection ratione materiae formulated by Peru, based on Articles 2,…
On August 6, 2020, an arbitral tribunal composed of Andrés Rigo Sureda (P), O. Thomas Johnson, Jr., and Pierre Mayer (the Tribunal), constituted under the agreement between the United Kingdom and Uruguay for the promotion and protection of investments (the BIT), issued an award in Prenay Agarwal, Vinita Agarwal and Ritika Mehta v. Uruguay (PCA…
Investment treaty arbitration tribunals have addressed issues surrounding State intervention and States’ regulatory freedom time and time again, consequently creating guiding precedent regarding State conduct that could constitute breaches of the fair and equitable treatment (“FET”) or expropriation standards. However, recently, an investment treaty arbitration tribunal not only had to deal with issues surrounding the…
On June 30, 2020, an era of international investment law and dispute resolution came to an end as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) concluded its 27-year tenure with the entry into force of United States – Mexico – Canada Agreement (USMCA). Three years later, a further milestone is now marked: today, Canada, which…
Despite the good results obtained for several years in its defense from investment arbitration claims, the Republic of Peru has become one of the countries with the highest number of arbitration claims filed against it. To date, nineteen cases have concluded, and twenty-three cases are pending resolution. In December 2022, an award was issued in…
As part of Day 1 of the 2023 Paris Arbitration Week (PAW), Laborde Law and Honlet Legum organised a discussion between Meg Kinnear (ICSID, Secretary General), Toby Landau KC (Duxton Hill Chambers), and Prof. Alain Pellet (Paris X University) on “The Future of Investment Arbitration?”. The event was moderated by Gustavo Laborde (Laborde Law), Jean-Christophe…
On 30 November 2022, the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (along with the British Institute of International and Comparative Law) organised the 2022 Kaplan Lecture. The lecture was delivered by Robert Spano – a former President and Judge of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) – and focussed on the new frontiers faced by…
2022 was a year of change and action with important developments in investment arbitration in Latin America. The region continues to top the ICSID investment arbitration caseload, accounting for 28% of the total of registered cases by June 2022. In 2022, states and arbitral institutions sought to modernize investment protections and their institutional frameworks. In…
A study published in 2012 revealed that only 15 arbitrators decided 55% of the 450 investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) cases reported at that time, most of them practitioners from Europe, USA or Canada. This was the case despite the fact that parties from all over the world were involved in those proceedings. To date, according…
International Law Weekend (“ILW”), held at Fordham Law School in New York City between October 20-22, 2022, celebrated the centennial anniversary of the American Branch of the International Law Association with a program entitled “The Next 100 Years of International Law.” It brought together a wide variety of engaging panels and events to explore current…
In the last two decades, the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s (PCA) overall docket has seen a rapid growth in mixed arbitrations between States and private parties. Today, over 180 arbitrations are currently pending before PCA tribunals, of which more than 100 are investor-State disputes brought under bilateral and multilateral investment treaties and national investment laws….
Negotiations towards a modernized Energy Charter Treaty (ECT, Treaty) ended on 24 June 2022, with the States Parties reaching an agreement in principle following discussions towards reform that began in November 2017. While the final text of the modernized Treaty has not yet been published, the Secretariat of the ECT in June issued a public…
Following the Russian military invasion of Ukraine, dozens of states imposed sanctions against Russia. In response, Russia imposed or threatened to impose severe countermeasures on foreign investments associated with such “unfriendly states”. In this regard, several news outlets reported that Russia is in the process of implementing legislation that will interfere with foreign investments in…
On 21 March 2022, the Administrative Council of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes , or ICSID, approved extensive amendments of ICSID’s Regulations and Rules. The Regulations and Rules prominently include the rules of procedure for arbitration proceedings initiated under the constituent treaty of ICSID, the 1965 Convention on the Settlement of Investment…
