International Law Commons^™

Alternatives To Investor-State Dispute Settlement, Lise Johnson, Jesse Coleman, Brooke Güven, Lisa E. Sachs

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Proponents often explain support for international investment agreements (IIAs) for their ability to: (1) promote investment flows; (2) depoliticize disputes between investors and states; (3) promote the rule of law; and (4) provide compensation for certain harms to investors – objectives of varying degrees of importance to multinational enterprises, home states, host states, and other stakeholders.

While each of these objectives may seem desirable, it is important to consider what exactly they mean and whether IIAs are optimally tailored to achieve them.

This two-part series aims to consider just that. In the first blog installment, we asked of investor-state dispute …

New Uncitral Arbitration Rules On Transparency: Application, Content And Next Steps, Lise Johnson, Nathalie Bernasconi-Osterwalder

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

In July 2013, the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) adopted a package of rules aiming to ensure transparency in investor-State arbitration (the “Rules on Transparency”), ratifying the work done by delegations to UNCITRAL – comprised of 55 Member States, additional observer States and observer organizations – over the course of nearly three years of negotiations.

Under previous versions of the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules, disputes between investors and States were often not made public, even where important public policies were involved or illegal or corrupt business practices were uncovered. In contrast, the new rules, which will officially come …

International Rule Of Law And Constitutional Justice In International Investment Law And Arbitration, Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Judicial administration of justice through reasoned interpretation, application and clarification of legal principles and rules is among the oldest paradigms of constitutional justice. The principles of procedural justice underlying investor-state arbitration remain controversial, especially if confidentiality and party autonomy governing commercial arbitration risk neglecting adversely affected third parties and public interests. There are also concerns that rule-following and formal equality of foreign investors and home states may not ensure substantive justice in the settlement of investment disputes unless arbitrators and courts take more seriously their customary law obligation of settling disputes in conformity with human rights obligations of governments and …