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Intellectual property and COVID-19 medicines: why a WTO waiver may not be enough
The COVID-19 pandemic, and the race to make vaccines and other useful technologies more accessible to people around the world, has once again highlighted the tension between intellectual property rights and the promotion of public health.
French controllers of Nuevo Pudahuel, operator of the Santiago airport, initiate ICSID proceedings against Chile
Nuevo Pudahuel had asked the Ministry of Public Works to extend the term of the concession contract as a result of the pandemic, but the MOP was closed to changes in the contract.
The multinationals suing governments over their pandemic response
Law firms have been drawing investors’ attention to how they could pass their Covid-19-related losses onto states.
Biden’s top trade official should work to protect governments from the rising number of corporate lawsuits
In 2020, foreign investors filed at least 51 known cases demanding huge sums from governments struggling to fight a historic pandemic.
Human rights, environment and climate protection before profits
Three principles to reshape trade and investment to overcome the crisis.
Secretive mega-trade deal rules could harm Asia’s Covid-19 recovery
Fifteen countries will sign a mega-trade deal at the ASEAN conference this weekend imposing secretive restrictions on how governments help workers through the pandemic, trade union leaders and parliamentarians have warned.
Stop corporations profiting from the pandemic. Stop ISDS.
Our call to suspend all ISDS cases during and beyond the COVID-19 crisis.
Neoliberal obesity and coronavirus in Mexico
American capital brought high rates of chronic disease to Mexico which has led to a surging COVID-19 death toll.
COVID-19 and the risk of foreign investor challenges
Tensions are likely to surface between the public-policy directions of governments managing a challenging economic climate and foreign investors’ private interests.
Investor-state claims in era of COVID-19 pandemic
With state measures in response to COVID-19 being compounded by an already difficult economic environment for investors, they may have little choice but to challenge those measures.
Investor-state disputes arising from COVID-19: balancing public health and corporate wealth
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, governments globally are engaging in a difficult balancing act of protecting public health, mitigating economic damage and avoiding interference with private rights.
Juggling crisis
Latin America’s battle with COVID-19 hampered by investment arbitration cases.
BITs and bonds: The international law and economics of sovereign debt
Recent jurisdictional decisions suggest that sovereign debt will be subject to bilateral investment treaties for the foreseeable future.
ISDS enables making more money from losses
Predatory international law firms are encouraging multimillion-dollar investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) lawsuits citing Covid-19 containment, relief and recovery measures.
The Covid-19 pandemic and liability under investment treaties
COVID-19 can increase liability for countries under international investment treaties. Developing countries face imminent challenges under such treaties.
Will the new NAFTA make the pandemic worse for Mexicans?
For Mexican workers, farmers, and the poor, the pandemic and the new treaty replacing NAFTA are a devastating one-two punch.
Corporations to sue states for pandemic billions
Corporations are busy weaponising obscure legal instruments to sue government for their actions to save lives and jobs during the coronavirus crisis.
Revisiting BITs in the wake of Covid-19
Amidst the global risk of ISDS claims, it is incumbent to shed light on Bangladesh’s BIT structure and its feasibility to confront ISDS claims in the backdrop of Covid-19 regulatory space.
Civil society groups sound alarm over COVID-19 claims in ’corporate courts’
Countries could be facing a wave of cases from transnational corporations suing governments over actions taken to respond to the Covid pandemic using a system known as investor-state dispute settlement, or ISDS. Some 630 organisations from across the world, representing hundreds of millions of people, are calling on governments in an open letter to urgently take action to shut down this threat.
Potential ISDS problems post Covid-19
The Transpacific Partnership Agreement involves investor - state dispute settlement clauses, which large companies may use ISDS to sue governments for actions they took to stop the spread of the virus.