{"id":8851,"date":"2022-03-30T08:46:10","date_gmt":"2022-03-30T06:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cf.iisd.net\/itn\/?p=8851"},"modified":"2024-08-09T18:32:20","modified_gmt":"2024-08-09T16:32:20","slug":"another-round-of-ect-negotiations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/2022\/03\/30\/another-round-of-ect-negotiations\/","title":{"rendered":"Another round of ECT negotiations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From March 1 to 4, 2022, the contracting parties of the <span class='tooltipsall tooltipsincontent classtoolTips67'>ECT<\/span> met for their 11th round of negotiations for a possible reform of the treaty. The meeting was overshadowed by rising energy prices and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which is likely to have significant consequences for the European energy market.<\/p>\n<p>In deviating from its usually formal public communication on each negotiation round, the Energy Charter Secretariat <a href=\"https:\/\/www.energychartertreaty.org\/modernisation-of-the-treaty\/\">reported<\/a> that several contracting parties, \u201cincluding the European Union and its Member States, Japan, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, condemned in the strongest possible terms the unprecedented military aggression of the Russian Federation against the ECT\u2019s Contracting Party Ukraine.\u201d The Ukrainian delegate, who was able to participate despite the current circumstances, specifically warned about the consequences of Russia\u2019s invasion for civilian energy infrastructure in Ukraine and energy security throughout Europe in general.<\/p>\n<p>Focusing on the \u201cmodernization\u201d itself, the negotiating contracting parties discussed the definition of investment, as well as absolute and relative standards such as direct and indirect expropriation and most-favoured nation treatment. The modernization group also dwelled on controversial issues related to investor\u2013state dispute settlement such as security for costs and valuation techniques applied by arbitral tribunals when calculating damages.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, the definition of \u201ceconomic activity in the energy sector,\u201d which determines the type of energy investments\u2014including in the fossil fuel sector\u2014that will remain protected under a modernized treaty, appears to remain particularly controversial. With an ad hoc Energy Charter Conference <a href=\"https:\/\/trade.ec.europa.eu\/doclib\/press\/index.cfm?id=2354\">scheduled for June<\/a>, it is likely that at least some contracting parties are aiming to reach some form of reform agreement by then.<!--more--><\/p>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips63','Bilateral investment treaty'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips65','East African community'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips67','Energy Charter Treaty'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips76','multilateral investment court'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips106','asociaci\u00f3n p\u00fablica-privada'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips110','inversi\u00f3n extranjera directa'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips116','European Commission'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips117','European Union'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips118','Union europ\u00e9enne'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips119','Uni\u00f3n Europea'); <\/script>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From March 1 to 4, 2022, the contracting parties of the <span class='tooltipsall tooltipsincontent classtoolTips67'>ECT<\/span> met for their 11th round of negotiations for a possible reform of the treaty. The meeting was overshadowed by rising energy prices and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which is likely to have significant consequences for the European energy market.<script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips67','Energy Charter Treaty'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips116','European Commission'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips117','European Union'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips118','Union europ\u00e9enne'); <\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> toolTips('.classtoolTips119','Uni\u00f3n Europea'); <\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":15869,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[397],"tags":[1907],"class_list":["post-8851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-ect"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iisd.org\/itn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}