reformed ISDS
In recent years, observers have questioned whether investor–state arbitration will or should be a feature of the next generation of free trade and bilateral investment treaties.
An updated European Commission proposal to reform the Energy Charter Treaty is falling short of what’s needed to reinstate governments’ “right to regulate” in areas like climate change, activists say.
This is Brazil’s 10th and India’s 4th bilateral investment agreement since both nations had adopted their Model Bilateral Investment Treaty.
Because of changing attitudes with regard to "expansive" investor protections contained in current treaties, investors need to think ahead and negotiate for the necessary protections to be included in investment contracts.
Given the present widespread dissatisfaction with investor–State dispute settlement, the ECOWAS Court can provide an alternative to arbitration that is already up and running.
For developing countries, governing foreign direct investment through IIAs and ISDS corresponds to a policy model discredited by years of social and economic failures.
The tribunal dismissed the claimants’ invocation of the UK-Sri Lanka BIT on jurisdictional grounds.
The basis of a claim in ISDS is always the applicable international investment agreement. There would always be differences and inconsistencies with an appellate mechanism.
As observers of the UNCITRAL process, we watch the debates with great interest, writing about the emergence of different camps, giving perspectives on how the process fits within broader geopolitical developments, and offering potential models for moving forward.
We civil society organizations and trade unions from the African continent express our concerns about the proposal presented by the European Union to establish a multilateral investment court and support further reaching reforms of ISDS.
The UNCITRAL Working Group III turned squarely to designing permanent institutions: a standing appellate mechanism and a multilateral investment court (MIC).
The US government used to be the chief proponent of strong investor protection clauses in international trade deals. No longer. What happened?
In investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS), ironies do occasionally occur. Sometimes they’re bitter. Sometimes they’re carbon-intensive. Sometimes they’re radioactive.
Global investment governance needs to be redesigned for the 21st century, with people and the planet at the core.
In the end, states have the power to decide collectively what reforms to pursue, in what order and in what form. Individually, they will also have choice about which particular reform options to adopt.
This process is likely to end with a plural solution in which both models (ISDS and a permanent court), and possibly others, exist.
Several states participating in the UNCITRAL process have already adopted viable alternatives to ISDS.
The European Commission today presented to the Council four proposals for specific rules putting in place the Investment Court System provisions in the EU-Canada trade deal.
Should AfCFTA member states opt for an ISDS mechanism, a reformed mechanism should be expected.
Their submissions conclude that the system is detrimental to public budgets, regulations in the public interest, democracy and the rule of law.
