Introduction The two main reasons why countries generally agree to sign bilateral or multilateral investment treaties (BITs or MITs) are to attract foreign direct investments, while at the same time protecting their own citizens’ investments abroad by reducing political risk. Arguably, there might be multiple added values on top of these reasons for a specific…
The Opinion delivered on 19 September 2017 by Advocate General Wathelet in the case C-284/16 Achmea has already been widely commented on in the international arbitration community. The views are either critical or approving, but so far, they have mostly been focused on whether a particular legal point made by the Advocate General was right…
The international economic order is today bound together through a network of bilateral (and multilateral) investment treaties which provide investors with a variety of protections. Such Bilateral investment treaties (“BITs”) are a relatively young species dating back to 1959’s Pakistan-Federal Republic of Germany BIT. While the exact content of BITs varies by agreement, most contain…
The potential clash between protection of investors under investment treaties and protection of the environment has emerged in a number of recent arbitrations. More than 60 investment disputes filed since 2012 have had some environmental component. Amongst them, there have been several cases in which States have sought to enforce environmental law against investors in…
On May 30, 2017, Volterra Fietta and the University of Notre Dame hosted a debate of whether foreign investors can sue the United Kingdom for a hard Brexit. The recorded video is now available for viewing. Markus Burgstaller and I presented the case that foreign investors may have viable claims against the UK, while Jeremy…
In October 2016, the ICSID advised the Member States of the ICSID Convention that it was beginning the fourth amendment process since the enactment of the definitive ICSID Arbitration Rules in 1967. The first amendment to the Rules took place in 1984 and mainly referred to the possibility to resort to national courts for provisional…
A provision enacted in 2016 seems to have created a revolutionary change in Brazil’s approach to arbitration involving State parties. It is well-known that Brazil is not a party to the Washington Convention of 1965 nor of any ratified BIT (Bilateral Investment Treaty). The country has relied on commercial arbitration to resolve disputes with State…
On 8 March 2017, the Romanian Parliament sent to the Romanian President for promulgation the Law allowing for the termination of the Bilateral Investment Treaties between Romania and other Member States of the European Union (“Intra-EU BITs”). This comes after Poland adopted a similar measure at the beginning of January 2017 and with the European…
Much Ado About India’s Protectionist Model BIT The last week of November 2016 was an eventful and rather paradoxical week for India. While India and Brazil successfully concluded negotiations for a new Bilateral Investment Treaty (“BIT”), the India-Netherlands BIT expired. India has spent the past year refurbishing its investment agreements. According to UNCTAD, India is…
The Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement, signed on 4 February 2016 among 12 Asia-Pacific economies, faces a rocky road to ratification. In the run-up to the US presidential election in November, both Donald Trump and (for now) Hillary Clinton say they are opposed. Yet Australian Prime Minister Turnbull urged President Obama to put the FTA to a vote in Congress…
Climate change is a serious threat to humankind. The sources of the problem are many, requiring a multidimensional approach to find practical and viable solutions. In the last several years, awareness of the issue has been addressed in the public domain, by international community, and civil society. This publicity has resulted in States taking concrete…
Just like a century ago – and throughout their entire history – the Balkans remain a zone of structural instability. In this respect, the ‘end of history’ has not come around to the fringes of Europe, as Francis Fukuyama once optimistically expected. Therefore, although the Balkan area is an essentially coherent cultural sub-space, while still…
The Asian economy is considered an engine of global economic growth, accounting for almost two-thirds of forecasted global economic growth for 2016.1)“Asia: Growth Remains Strong, Expected to Ease Only Modesty”, International Monetary Fund Survey Magazine, 3 May 2016, https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2016/CAR050316B.htm. Over the last decade, the flows of foreign investment into and out of Asia have consistently…
The Government of the Republic of India has adopted a revised text of the former 2003 version of its Model Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT). Having entered into effect in December 2015, this text is intended to serve as a template for negotiations of India’s existing and future investment relations with countries around the world, including…
International investment law and investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) are at a historic juncture as the United States and the European Union (EU) have started to address the content and contours of the investment chapter in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) in the latest negotiation round that took place in Brussels the last week…
Investing internationally is all about taking risks. Risk-taking is essential to survive in today’s business world, where competitors, rivals, challengers, in all sectors of the economy, are growing like mushrooms. One needs to take risks to stand out from the rest. Foreign investors are at the center of our economies and appear as key actors…
More than one year has passed since the U.S. and Cuba started to rekindle their relationship and restore economic ties. The Cuban government is opening the country to foreign investment, the U.S. is relaxing the sanctions imposed on Cuba, and both countries reopened their embassies after half century of frosty relations. Despite U.S. sanctions, Cuba…
by Nahila Cortes, American University Washington College of Law Much is being said about the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (“TPP”), the landmark free trade agreement signed by twelve States accounting for 40% of the world trade. Chapter 9, the investment chapter, is an important provision which applies to investors (i.e. a national or company of a…
“ISDS” (short for “investor-state dispute settlement”) was a less-known acronym some years back. Now, it has been given an increasingly bad name, no doubt fuelled by Vattenfall’s claim against Germany following the shutting down of its nuclear plants after the 2011 Fukushima disaster, tobacco giant Philip Morris’ high profile claims arising from Australia’s plain-labelling laws,…
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and should not be regarded as representative of, or binding upon ArbitralWomen. On 2 June 2015, the French Minister of Foreign Trade, Matthias Fekl, submitted to the European Commission a proposal regarding the Investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism included in the project for…
Given the existence of thousands of international investment agreements, the international investment law regime has been described as “complex and confusing,” “highly fragmented,” and “characterised by overlaps and incoherence”. Two key developments, however, are contributing to the harmonization of that regime. First, a set of major agreements is being negotiated by many of the world’s…
On May 26, 2015, Brazil signed its third investment treaty of 2015 with Mexico. Given the agreements previously signed with Angola and Mozambique, this certainly comes as a confirmation of a new Brazilian attitude towards the regulation of foreign investment. The instrument mostly follows the same model used for the previous two: a Cooperation and…
Introduction The Government of India recently released the Draft Indian Model BIT (“Draft BIT”) for public consultation. India has an extensive BIT network with over 72 BITs in force. In 2012, following the investment treaty award against India in White Industries award, the Government initiated a comprehensive effort to revise the Model Indian BIT (“Old…
Germany’s position on international investment law and investor-State arbitration is attracting increasing attention since the signing of the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) in September 2014 has been deferred, inter alia, because of opposition from Sigmar Gabriel, Germany’s Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy. Is Germany, the country that not only has…
