Resources and Events
Resources
International Arbitration Case Law
This website is a private, not-for-profit academic endeavour, in partnership with the School of International Arbitration, Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary University of London. Its objective is to summarize, edit, and coordinate the publication of decisions rendered by arbitral tribunals, international tribunals and national courts in matters of international arbitration and related legal issues. At the early stage of this project the main focus will be on international investment arbitration. This academic project also seeks to eliminate language barriers and to facilitate access to the content of decisions of national and international tribunals in various languages.www.internationalarbitrationcaselaw.com
How to Kill a BIT and Not Die Trying: Legal and Political Challenges of Denouncing or Renegotiating Bilateral Investment Treaties
Federico Lavopa, Lucas E. Barreiros, María Victoria Bruno, Society of International Economic Law (SIEL), 3rd Biennial Global Conference, 9 July 2012
The backlash against the expansive interpretation of key disciplines of international investment law by arbitral tribunals has prompted a host of strategies, implemented mostly by developing countries, aimed at walking away from the system. These range from denouncing the ICSID Convention and withdrawing consent to the exercise of jurisdiction by other arbitral bodies to denouncing the Bilateral Investment Treaties to which they are parties. The purported objective of these initiatives is to reduce the legal exposure of these countries to international claims before arbitral tribunals, either by depriving foreign investors of a forum in which to pursue their claims or by completely extinguishing their rights under the treaties. This paper focuses on these strategies and argues that none of them produce the desired results, at least in the short term. It notes that BITs include self-defense mechanisms – particularly, most favored nation (MFN) obligations, tacit renewal and “survival clauses” – that either delay or turn impossible the realization of these exit strategies. Against this backdrop, the paper proposes that developing States may be better off by implementing a strategy of renegotiation of their BITs. Available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2102683
The Global Governance of Capital Flows: New Opportunities, Enduring Challenges
Kevin Gallagher, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts Amherst, May 2012
International capital mobility has long been associated with financial and banking crises. The Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund contain multi-lateral rules to govern global capital flows. For some countries, especially those in the developing world, the IMF Articles of Agreement remain the core framework under which they have autonomy to regulate cross-border capital flows. For others, these rules have been partly superseded by more recent trade and other economic integration agreements. Thus what used to be a regime of ‘cooperative decentralization’ has become a patchwork of overlapping and inconsistent governance structures that pose significant challenges to nations attempting to regulate global capital flows for stability and growth. This paper traces the history of governing global capital flows and presents a framework for understanding three distinct eras in the modern governance of global capital. The framework emphasizes how power, interests, ideas, and institutions interact to shape each era in different combinations to yield different outcomes. From this perspective, there are many challenges ahead for effectively governing global capital flows. Available at: http://www.peri.umass.edu/236/hash/5177c19e45bd73aaf9ae065db58a72cb/publication/512/
Farm Land and Water: China invests abroad
Carin Smaller, Wei Qiu, Yalan Liu, International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2012
China is actively investing in agriculture abroad and is now the world’s third largest source of foreign investment stocks in agriculture, behind only the U.S. and Canada. While China has a strong domestic agricultural base, there are a few products that China does not produce in sufficient quantities, and which are needed for the food processing, manufacturing and energy sectors. This paper explores how China secures those agricultural products through trade and investment. Importantly, the policy is shifting from a strategy based on dependence on global trade to a strategy based on foreign direct investment, including through acquiring large tracts of farmland with associated water resources. The authors found reports of 86 Chinese agriculture projects covering 9 million hectares of land in developing countries. They were able to confirm the existence of 55 projects covering 4.9 million hectares. Available at: http://www.IISD.org/publications/pub.aspx?pno=1687
Events
October
20 October – 7 November
Regional Course on Key Issues on the International Economic Agenda for Western Asia, UNCTAD, Sultanate of Oman, http://UNCTAD.org/en/Pages/MeetingDetails.aspx?meetingid=77
29-31
Sixth Annual Forum of Developing Country Investment Negotiators, IISD, Port-of-Spain, http://www.IISD.org/investment/dci/
November
2-4
Ninth Annual Seminar on International Commercial Arbitration: How to Handle a BIT Arbitration, American University, Washington College of Law, Washington, http://www.wcl.american.edu/arbitration/seminar.cfm
14-15
Seventh Columbia International Investment Conference, Columbia University, New York, http://www.vcc.columbia.edu/content/seventh-columbia-international-investment-conference
19-23
Workshop on International Investment Policies, Investment Promotion Strategies and Sustainable Development for African IDB member countries, UNCTAD, Casablanca, http://unctad.org/en/Pages/MeetingDetails.aspx?meetingid=157
26 November – 7 December
Training Course: International Investment Agreements and Investor-State Arbitration, International Law Institute, Washington, http://www.ili.org/training/ili-brochure/upcoming-programs-and-events/282-2012-international-investment-agreements-and-investor-state-arbitration.html
December
3-9
Training Course on the New Generation of Investment Policies: Managing Investment Disputes for Latin American Countries, UNCTAD, Quito, http://unctad.org/en/Pages/MeetingDetails.aspx?meetingid=163
10-11
Mauritius International Arbitration Conference 2012, Mauritius Board of Investment, Port Louis, http://www.miac.mu/
