Since 2001, ITN has offered news, analysis, and opinions on international investment law and its implications for sustainable development.
The South African Development Community (SADC) Model Bilateral Investment Treaty Template and Commentary was completed in June 2012 by Member States of the Community. Its completion marks the end of an 18 month process of consultations and drafting among government representatives and is intended as a guide for member states in future investment treaty negotiations.
On 12 June 2012, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development launched its Investment Policy Framework for Sustainable Development. IPFSD comes at a time when the international investment regime is in a state of “transition” and when an increasing number of governments are reviewing their investment-related regulatory frameworks, both at the national and international levels.
Bilateral investment treaties used to be boilerplate: taken out of a drawer before official visits; signed with pomp and circumstance but not much attention to precise wording. Today, the diversity and ramifications of investment-related treaties are staggering.
From October 1-5, 2012, a working group of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law met in Vienna to continue work on how to ensure transparency in treaty-based investor-state arbitration. It was the working group’s fifth week-long meeting on the topic, but will not be the last.
National investment codes[1] may function as potential sources of international investment law. In other words, states may make unilateral undertakings within the framework of national investment legislations and, as a […]
With the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty, in force since December 2009, foreign direct investment fell under the exclusive competence of the European Union (EU). Since then the three European institutions—the […]
After several cases assessing whether state regulation in the public interest gives rise to a claim under an investment treaty, commentators have begun asking questions about the applicable standard of […]
[T]he Tribunal must balance the legitimate and reasonable expectations of the Claimants with […] [the] right to regulate the provision of a vital public service.[1] This quote from an investment […]
The appropriate standard of review to be applied in investor-state arbitration—as well as in other dispute settlement contexts, for that matter—remains a recurrent and much debated topic.[1] The reason is […]
Debates about investment treaties often raise questions about fairness and independence in international investment arbitration. Some observers argue that investment arbitration offers a neutral and impartial forum in which to […]
In January 2012, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela denounced the ICSID Convention,[1] becoming the third country – after Bolivia and Ecuador – to do so. The exit from the global […]
In November 2011, an arbitral tribunal found the Republic of India guilty of violating the India-Australia bilateral investment treaty (BIT). It is the first known investment-treaty ruling against India, despite […]
A dispute will only fall within the jurisdiction of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) if it directly arises out of an ‘investment’, as is provided by Article 25(1) of the Convention for the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States (ICSID Convention). However, not only does the ICSID Convention fail to provide any definition of what constitutes an ‘investment’, the drafters of the ICSID Convention, in fact, made an express decision not to include such a definition. This absence has given rise to interesting issues of interpretation as ICSID tribunals have sought to arrive at an understanding of how the term ‘investment’ should be properly understood for the purposes of the ICSID Convention.
As members of the Eurozone are now acutely aware, the lack of a sovereign debt restructuring regime is one of the most glaring gaps in the international financial architecture. That […]
Advocates for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) describe it as a “new generation agreement for the 21st century” that will go further behind the border than any previous free trade […]
Five years ago, some Latin American countries started a critical movement against the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), the World Bank institution for arbitrating disputes between foreign […]
It is an established fact that many transnational companies choose the jurisdiction of the Netherlands as a base for their global trade and investment operations, at least partly because of […]
Over the past two decades, stabilization provisions in investment contracts (and in the domestic law in some developing countries) became a popular demand of investors into developing countries. Rarely used […]
The UN shines a spotlight on business and human rights In July 2005, the then United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed John Ruggie as his Special Representative on Business and […]
The public began to hunger for information about investment in the agriculture sector when a massive wave of foreign investment in farmland and water was triggered, in 2008, by a […]
In recent years, economic liberalisation, improved transport and communication systems, and the global demand for energy, minerals and agricultural commodities have fostered investment in agriculture, mining and petroleum projects in […]
The oil and gas industry faces increasingly strict environmental standards in developed countries. However, the majority of the world’s proven oil reserves are in developing countries and economies in transition, […]
In April of this year, as a part of a broader rethink of Australia’s approach to international trade negotiations, the Gillard Government vowed that it will no longer include provisions […]
Two international projects relating to foreign investment and sustainable development (SD) were completed in the past two months. These two projects individually and together show the emerging pathways to properly […]
For nearly two decades, the tobacco industry has used international investment rules to challenge governmentrestrictions on cigarette marketing. In 1994, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company threatened to bring a claim under […]
With the seventh round of negotiations between Canada and the European Union over the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) completed this April, and the eighth round scheduled for […]
While the concepts of sovereignty, human rights, the environment and the rule of law are often invoked in public debate about international investment treaties (IITs), there is relatively little discussion of the economic effects of such treaties.[1] One of the most powerful legal protections provided by IITs is the protection of foreign investor’s ‘legitimate expectations’ under fair and equitable treatment (FET) provisions, which are common to most IITs. This article draws on economic theory—specifically, the notion of moral hazard—to elucidate some of the problems with broader interpretations of the doctrine of legitimate expectations.
The last two decades have witnessed an exponential increase in arbitral disputes between investors and states under international investment treaties. UNCTAD reports 357 known registered cases by the end of 2009; of those, 202 cases—or 57 percent—were initiated after 2004.[1] Independent investment tribunals now regularly render binding decisions as to whether states have violated investment protection standards guaranteed under various bilateral and multilateral investment treaties—a phenomenon that has turned international investment law into one of the most dynamic fields of public international law.
This short essay discusses new evidence in the economics profession showing that capital controls are important macro-prudential measures that nations should have in their toolkit to prevent and mitigate financial crises. More importantly for this publication, it will be shown that United States trade and investment treaties do not reflect the emerging consensus on capital controls. There is a unique opportunity to rectify this problem as the United States finalizes its new model bilateral investment treaty (BIT) and moves forward on negotiations for a Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) with numerous Pacific Rim nations. Moreover, an opportunity for reform lies in the pending Congressional votes on Bush-era trade deals such as those with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama.
To a significant extent the site of debate about the terms of globalization and its relationship to the regulatory state has shifted from the World Trade Organization to the world of investment treaties and arbitration. Investment treaties typically confer on a foreign investor a right to sue a host state that has allegedly failed to comply with a number of substantive obligations, typical among them the requirement to compensate for expropriation, fair and equitable treatment, and national treatment.
The Republican victories in U.S. congressional elections on 2 November 2010 are widely assumed to have increased the odds that the Obama administration will proceed with new bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and free trade agreements (FTAs) containing investment chapters. But this assumption bear closer examination. The post-election situation is complex.
The 2010 World Investment Forum (WIF), held on 6-9 September 2010, in Xiamen, China, turned UNCTAD into the global gravity center for open, universal, inclusive and high-level international investment discourse and policy formation. Eight events and conferences were attended by more than 1,800 participants from 120 countries and 16 international organisations, among them nine heads of State, four heads of international organisations, 79 ministerial-level officials, and 116 senior business executives.
There has been recent interest in the use of quantitative research tools to evaluate the fairness and independence of investment arbitration. In this article, Professor Gus Van Harten critiques one of the most prominent studies to examine this question. While the study in question, “Development and Outcomes of Investment Treaty Arbitration” (2009), has been used in some policy circles to support the argument that investment arbitration functions fairly, Van Harten argues it has limitations that prevent such conclusions.
It is no longer a secret that there is a new wave of foreign investment in farmland, predominantly in Africa. An explosion of media reports and a series of studies by the World Bank, Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), have confirmed the scale and consequences of this new influx of foreign investment. The World Bank report, by far the most comprehensive, found that reported deals amounted to 45 million hectares in 2009 alone.
Ignacio Torterola In October, State delegations are expected to discuss the issue of transparency in the UNCITRAL Rules of Arbitration. Ignacio Torterola, ICSID Liaison at the Argentine Embassy in Washington, […]
Ramon Torrent The Lisbon Treaty broadens European commercial policy in what marks the latest milestone in a long (and unfinished) journey in which the EC/EU has sought to extend its […]
The Lisbon Treaty has shifted the competence related to Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) from the European Union Member States to the Union and has added it to the Union’s exclusive common commercial policy. This transfer of competence not only requires the development of a common EU investment policy, but also legislative steps to clarify the status of the 1200 existing Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) of the EU Member States and their ongoing BIT negotiations. This offers a unique opportunity for an assessment of the existing BITs and for an open and broad discussion on the future European international investment policy.
With the EU’s Lisbon Treaty granting the European Union competence over Foreign Direct Investment, the European Commission released two documents in July that help chart the way forward: a draft […]
By Elizabeth Whitsitt and Damon Vis-Dunbar30 November 2008 In 1991, Brazil began one of the world’s largest privatization programs, selling more than US$100 billion worth of assets. Seventeen years later […]
1 October 2008 Professor John Ruggie was appointed to be Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on business & human rights in 2005. Prof. Ruggie is also the Kirkpatrick […]
