Investment Treaty Arbitration And International Law Volume 8

This volume contains the papers and proceedings of the eighth annual Juris Conference addressing new developments in investment treaty arbitration with a focus on the fundamental issues that have drawn some of the greatest controversies in the jurisprudence over the past few years. The four topics addressed in this book include: Challenges to Arbitrators: Should the Challenge Process Be Overhauled?New Developments in Definition of "Investment": What Is the Role of the Concept of "Property" in Investment Arbitration?Is Investment Treaty Arbitration a Mechanism to Second-guess Governments' Exercise of Administrative Discretion: Public Law or Lex Investoria?Awarding Damages: Proportionality, Contributory Fault, and Arbitral Tribunals' Discretion or Toss of a Coin? Contributors: Meriam N. Alrashid Paul Barker Julie Bédard Alexander Bĕlohlávek Amal Bouchenaki Mark N. Bravin Kate Brown de Vejar Julián Cárdenas Garcia Tina Cicchetti Robert A. DeRise Paolo Di Rosa James Egerton-Vernon Timothy L. Foden George K. Foster John Y. Gotanda George Kahale III Jonathan S. Kallmer Joshua Karton Matthew S. Kronby Pablo D. López Zadicoff Juan Felipe Merizalde Urdaneta Craig Miles Caline Mouawad Timothy G. Nelson Michael Nolan Eloïse Obadia Sirshar Qureshi Charles E. Roh Charles B. Rosenberg Margarita R. Sánchez Matthew D. Slater Fernando A. Tupa Janet M. Whittaker

Is it Time for a Regime Change? Protecting International Energy Investments against Political Risk. The 2013 seventh annual Juris investment arbitration conference put in issue the special role of international energy projects in the development of investor-state arbitration. It is currently one of the most active sectors of investor-state arbitration. The “facts” of the energy sector therefore are particularly well-developed in international jurisprudence. The similarities in the applicable law of investment protection between the energy sector and other sectors tend to hide from view what our panelists repeatedly uncovered: it is the facts of energy disputes that significantly set them apart. The concerns of sovereign dominion over national energy production and the protection of foreign investors in the energy sector against stranding large investments served as a key point of departure for discussions. The four questions that the Conference addressed include: The Energy Sector, Investment Arbitration and the ECT: Carving out a Special Regime? Energy Contracts and BITS – Is it Fair and Equitable to be Under the Umbrella? Mulitparty Investor Disputes in the Energy Sector – Preclusion, Consolidation or Free-For-All? Measure by Measure? Calculating Damages in Energy Disputes The discussion and debate that followed is provided in this book and sure to be of tremendous value to the international business lawyer, litigation specialist or trade and investment law policy expert.

In 2005, as part of its research activities in the field of investment treaty law and arbitration, the Investment Treaty Forum at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law organized two very successful public conferences in London addressing the issues of 'Nationality and Investment Treaty Claims' and 'Fair and Equitable Treatment in Investment Treaty Law.' This publication records the presentations given by very distinguished experts in the field. The first conference addressed a central issue in international law. Nationality sits at the heart of the debate over the rights and participation of private parties in international relations. In international investment law, nationality constitutes one of the central criteria defining the scope of application of international investment agreements such as the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) Convention or the several thousands bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and free trade agreements (FTAs). Topics addressed at the conference include the issue of nationality of physical and legal persons, the requirements for substantive and continuous nationality, as well as the issue of nationality in derivative actions and indirect claims. The second conference dealt with potentially the most important and elusive obligation imposed on States by international investment treaties: the fair and equitable treatment standard. The elements that are usually cited by the case law and by legal scholars in the attempt to describe the meaning of the fair and equitable treatment standard include very broad concepts that are open to differing interpretations depending fundamentally on the perceived objectives of the international investment system. Among the topics addressed at the conference were the application of the fair and equitable treatment standard in customary international law and in investment treaty practice; equivalent standards under domestic administrative law; the relationship between the fair and equitable standard and expropriation; and the relevance of the conduct of the investor in determining a breach of the fair and equitable treatment standard.

Volume 8 brings the series up to date to include important recent decisions up to mid-2004.

The existing literature on the substantive and procedural aspects of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) relies heavily on investment treaty arbitration decisions as a source of law. What is missing is a comprehensive, analytical review of state practice. This volume fills this gap, providing detailed analyses of the investment treaty policy and practice of nineteen leading capital-exporting states and emerging market economies. The authors are leading experts in government, academia, and private legal practice, and their chapters are largely based on primary source materials. Each chapter provides a description of the regulatory or policy framework governing foreign investment (both inflows and outflows) with a historical presentation of the state's Model BIT; an examination of internal government processes and practices relating to treaty negotiation, conclusion, ratification and record-keeping; and a detailed article-by-article analytical commentary of the state's Model BIT, elucidating the policy behind each provision and highlighting the ways in which the actual investment treaty practice of that state deviates from this standard text. This commentary is supplemented by the case law relevant to that state's investment treaties. This commentary will be of immense assistance to counsel and arbitrators engaged in arguing and determining the proper interpretation of BITs and investment chapters in Free Trade Agreements, and to government officials and scholars engaged in BIT policy formulation and implementation. It will serve as a standard resource for legal practitioners, scholars, policy-makers and other stakeholders in the field of international investment policy, law, and arbitration.

The Investment Treaty Forum of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law brings together eminent practitioners, arbitrators, and academics in the dynamic area of international investment law. Members of the Forum, under the British Institute's auspices, examine and debate the legal and policy issues presented by the increasingly complex web of investment treaties and the disputes that arise under them. The Forum held two conferences in 2007. This present volume compiles the papers presented at the conferences, as well as a transcript of the round-table discussion on the subject of 'precedent' in international investment. Part I of the book is devoted to remedies, compensation, and valuation in international investment disputes. This under-theorized area of law is ripe for further exploration by lawyers and economists, and the papers in this volume present a framework for further inquiry. Part II addresses the jurisprudence emerging from investment arbitration tribunals on issues such as fair and equitable treatment, 'umbrella' clauses, and nationality of claimants. The overarching question addressed by the papers, and by the concluding roundtable, is the relationship of those decisions with general international law and whether or not there is, or should be, a doctrine of precedent in investment treaty arbitration.

In Reshaping the Investor-State Dispute Settlement System: Journeys for the 21st Century, editors Jean E. Kalicki and Anna Joubin-Bret offer for the first time a broad compendium of practical suggestions for reform of the current system of resolving international investment treaty disputes. The increase in cases against States and their challenge to public policy measures has generated a strong debate, usually framed by complaints about a perceived lack of legitimacy, consistency and predictability. While some ideas have been proposed for improvement, there has never before been a book systematically focusing on constructive paths forward. This volume features 38 chapters by almost 50 leading contributors, all offering concrete proposals to improve the ISDS system for the 21st century.