Five years ago, some Latin American countries started a critical movement against the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), the World Bank institution for arbitrating disputes between foreign […]
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Resources Investment Treaties and Why They Matter to Sustainable Development: Questions and Answers International Institute for Sustainable Development, December 2011 This handbook provides an accessible introduction to investment treaties and […]
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Over the past two decades, stabilization provisions in investment contracts (and in the domestic law in some developing countries) became a popular demand of investors into developing countries. Rarely used […]
The UN shines a spotlight on business and human rights In July 2005, the then United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed John Ruggie as his Special Representative on Business and […]
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Resources International Investment Arbitration and Public Policy website launched A website launched in late September, called International Investment Arbitration and Public Policy (IIAPP), offers a searchable database of materials in […]
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Swiss claimant fails jurisdictional stage for not qualifying as an ‘investor’ Alps Finance and Trade AG v. Slovak Republic Damon Vis-Dunbar A claim against the government of Slovakia has failed […]
Canada and Dow Chemical settle claim over pesticide ban A controversial NAFTA investment dispute between Dow AgroSciences and the government of Canada was settled this May. The settlement agreement involves […]
Recent Publications Foreign Direct Investment in LDCs: Lessons Learned from the Decade 2001-2010 and the Way Forward UNCTAD, April 2011 This report, prepared in preparation of the Fourth United Nations […]
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PDF – English (560 KB) – Français (550 KB) – Español (550 KB) Flip-Page – English – Français – Español In this issue: Philip Morris v. Uruguay: Will investor-state arbitration send restrictions on […]
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UK firm victorious in dispute with Russia, but damages much less than claimed RosInvestCo UK Ltd. v. The Russian Federation, SCC Case No. Arb. V079/2005 Lise Johnson In an award […]
Publications Newly published UNCTAD Series on Issues in International Investment Agreements II “Scope and Definition”, UNCTAD, March 2011 A new UNCTAD study titled “Scope and Definition” reviews how the concepts […]
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The last two decades have witnessed an exponential increase in arbitral disputes between investors and states under international investment treaties. UNCTAD reports 357 known registered cases by the end of 2009; of those, 202 cases—or 57 percent—were initiated after 2004.[1] Independent investment tribunals now regularly render binding decisions as to whether states have violated investment protection standards guaranteed under various bilateral and multilateral investment treaties—a phenomenon that has turned international investment law into one of the most dynamic fields of public international law.
This short essay discusses new evidence in the economics profession showing that capital controls are important macro-prudential measures that nations should have in their toolkit to prevent and mitigate financial crises. More importantly for this publication, it will be shown that United States trade and investment treaties do not reflect the emerging consensus on capital controls. There is a unique opportunity to rectify this problem as the United States finalizes its new model bilateral investment treaty (BIT) and moves forward on negotiations for a Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) with numerous Pacific Rim nations. Moreover, an opportunity for reform lies in the pending Congressional votes on Bush-era trade deals such as those with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama.
To a significant extent the site of debate about the terms of globalization and its relationship to the regulatory state has shifted from the World Trade Organization to the world of investment treaties and arbitration. Investment treaties typically confer on a foreign investor a right to sue a host state that has allegedly failed to comply with a number of substantive obligations, typical among them the requirement to compensate for expropriation, fair and equitable treatment, and national treatment.
English (PDF – 400 KB) – Français (PDF – 400 KB) – Español (PDF – 400 KB) In this issue: 2010 midterm congressional elections on the United States; Fairness and […]
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The 2010 World Investment Forum (WIF), held on 6-9 September 2010, in Xiamen, China, turned UNCTAD into the global gravity center for open, universal, inclusive and high-level international investment discourse and policy formation. Eight events and conferences were attended by more than 1,800 participants from 120 countries and 16 international organisations, among them nine heads of State, four heads of international organisations, 79 ministerial-level officials, and 116 senior business executives.
European Union institutions consider the EU’s future international investment policy Debate on the future of the European Union’s international investment policy is heating up as EU institutions weigh in with […]
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There has been recent interest in the use of quantitative research tools to evaluate the fairness and independence of investment arbitration. In this article, Professor Gus Van Harten critiques one of the most prominent studies to examine this question. While the study in question, “Development and Outcomes of Investment Treaty Arbitration” (2009), has been used in some policy circles to support the argument that investment arbitration functions fairly, Van Harten argues it has limitations that prevent such conclusions.
It is no longer a secret that there is a new wave of foreign investment in farmland, predominantly in Africa. An explosion of media reports and a series of studies by the World Bank, Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), have confirmed the scale and consequences of this new influx of foreign investment. The World Bank report, by far the most comprehensive, found that reported deals amounted to 45 million hectares in 2009 alone.
Recent Publications The EU Approach to International Investment Policy after the Lisbon Treaty European Commission Directorate-General for Exernal Policies, Policy Department, 2010 This report provides analysis on the challenges and […]
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Argentina on the hook for breach of Fair and Equitable Treatment Suez, Sociedad General de Aguas de Barcelona S.A., and Vivendi Universal v. Argentine Republic (ICSID Case No. ARB/03/19) Lise […]
One fundamental principle of investor-State arbitration is the ability of parties to have their disputes resolved by independent and impartial arbitrators. In order to ensure adherence to this principle, laws and rules governing investor-State arbitrations grant parties the right to challenge arbitrators lacking these qualifications. Given the importance of ensuring arbitrator independence and impartiality, and as evidenced by the recent decision in and subsequent commentary on Vivendi v. Argentina, practitioners and stakeholders in investor-State arbitrations are devoting significant efforts to defining the substantive standards warranting arbitrator challenges, and to understanding what those standards require in practice.
With the often costly and far-reaching implications when investors use Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) to adjudicate claims against developing countries, governments in the developing world need powerful arguments to justify that these treaties are in their national interest. One notable contribution to this debate has recently been put forth by political scientists Jennifer Tobin and Mark Busch, who set out to investigate the link between BITs and preferential trade agreements (PTAs). Using statistical techniques, they analyse annual data on pairs of developing and developed countries between 1960 and 2004 and conclude that BITs «raise the prospects of getting a North-South PTA with all the deeper and reciprocal obligations that these entail.»
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Ignacio Torterola In October, State delegations are expected to discuss the issue of transparency in the UNCITRAL Rules of Arbitration. Ignacio Torterola, ICSID Liaison at the Argentine Embassy in Washington, […]
IISD In October 2009, at its annual meeting in Madrid, the Mining Law Committee of the International Bar Association launched a project to develop a Model Mining Development Agreement (MMDA). […]
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The Lisbon Treaty has shifted the competence related to Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) from the European Union Member States to the Union and has added it to the Union’s exclusive common commercial policy. This transfer of competence not only requires the development of a common EU investment policy, but also legislative steps to clarify the status of the 1200 existing Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) of the EU Member States and their ongoing BIT negotiations. This offers a unique opportunity for an assessment of the existing BITs and for an open and broad discussion on the future European international investment policy.
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