Law Commons^™

Theorizing Responsibility In The Investor State Dispute Resolution System, Kristen Boon

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

The Investor-State Dispute System (“ISDS”) permits investors to sue states when their investments are injured. The system was designed to protect investors and impose responsibilities on states; it is uncontroversial to say that the ISDS system is one-sided. But a chorus of voices is now asking: should investors have responsibilities too? The narrative is one of injustice, driven by the perception that states have signed on to a system that has left them with large financial exposure to investors. This viewpoint has been reinforced, in the eyes of some, by the influence of big business, and by state losses …

A Hague Parallel Proceedings Convention: Architecture And Features, Paul Herrup, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

In Paul Herrup and Ronald A. Brand, A Hague Convention on Parallel Proceedings, 63 Harvard International Law Journal Online 1(2022), available at https://harvardilj.org/2022/02/a-hague-convention-on-parallel-proceedings/ and https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3894502, we argued that the Hague Conference on Private International Law should not undertake a project to require or prohibit exercise of original jurisdiction in national courts. Rather, the goal of current efforts should be to improve the concentration of parallel litigation in a “better forum,” in order to achieve efficient and complete resolution of disputes in transnational litigation. The Hague Conference is now taking this path. As the Experts Group and Working Group …

The Hague Judgments Convention In The United States: A “Game Changer” Or A New Path To The Old Game?, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

The Hague Judgments Convention, completed on July 2, 2019, is built on a list of “jurisdictional filters” in Article 5(1), and grounds for non-recognition in Article 7. If one of the thirteen jurisdictional tests in Article 5(1) is satisfied, the judgment may circulate under the Convention, subject to the grounds for non-recognition found in Article 7. This approach to Convention structure is especially significant for countries considering ratification and implementation. A different structure was suggested in the initial Working Group stage of the Convention’s preparation which would have avoided the complexity of multiple rules of indirect jurisdiction, each of which …

A Hague Convention On Parallel Proceedings, Paul Herrup, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

The Hague Conference on Private International Law has engaged in a series of projects that, if successful, could provide the framework for critical aspects of trans-national litigation in the Twenty-first Century. Thus far, the work has resulted in the 2005 Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements and the 2019 Hague Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Judgments in Civil or Commercial Matters. Work now has begun to examine the need, desirability and feasibility of additional instruments in the area, with discussions of an instrument that would either require or prohibit the exercise of jurisdiction by national courts, and …

Briefing Note: Aligning International Investment Agreements With The Sustainable Development Goals, Lise Johnson, Lisa E. Sachs, Nathan Lobel

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Policy makers and other stakeholders are currently asking fundamental questions about whether and to what extent international investment agreements (IIAs) are consistent with and are helping to advance sustainable development objectives at home and abroad.

A 2019 paper from CCSI examines the alignment of IIAs with the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, arguing that while FDI will play an important role in advancing development outcomes, existing treaties must be reformed and future IIAs reimagined in order to achieve deep alignment with the sustainable development goals.

The paper proposes that IIAs should be designed and evaluated with respect to their ability to …

A Hardy Case Makes Bad Law, Victoria Sahani

Faculty Scholarship

This Article is the first ever to analyze a direct clash between the inherent power of US courts regarding the enforcement ofjudgments and the obligations of the United States as one of the 163 member countries of the 1965 Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States, commonly known as the "ICSID Convention. " The ICSID Convention includes a self-enforcement mechanism whereby the courts of the member countries are obligated to enforce the pecuniary obligations in multimillion (and sometimes over one billion) dollar ICSID arbitration awards as though they were court judgments of the …

Primer: International Investment Treaties And Investor-State Dispute Settlement, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

What Are International Investment Agreements (IIAs)?
IIAs are bilateral or multilateral treaties that commit state-parties to afford specific standards of conduct to foreign investors from the other state-parties. These treaties grant foreign investors certain benefits, including recourse to Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) to resolve disputes with host states. Over 3,300 agreements have been concluded worldwide, including NAFTA and the Comprehensive and Progressive TransPacific Partnership.

What is Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS)?
IIAs allow foreign investors (individuals and companies) to allege treaty violations by suing states through ad hoc arbitration. Arbitration tribunals are composed of party-appointed (and party-paid) private lawyers. Tribunals …

Intellectual Property: A Beacon For Reform Of Investor-State Dispute Settlement, Daniel Gervais

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article attempts to resolve clashes between intellectual property and investor-state dispute settlement (“ISDS”). ISDS clauses contained in bilateral, plurilateral, or multilateral trade and investment agreements give multinational investors (corporations) a right to sue a state in a binding proceeding before an independent arbitral tribunal. This jurisgenerative right to file a claim against a state in an international tribunal with mandatory jurisdiction is exceptional; it is generally reserved to other states. Only multinational corporations can use ISDS to file claims against states in which they invest, provided the state is party to a bilateral investment treaty (“BIT”) or a trade …

Promises Unfulfilled: How Investment Arbitration Tribunals Mishandle Corruption Claims And Undermine International Development, Andrew T. Bulovsky

Michigan Law Review

In recent years, the investment-arbitration and anti-corruption regimes have been in tension. Investment tribunals have jurisdiction to arbitrate disputes between investors and host states under international treaties that provide substantive protections for private investments. But these tribunals will typically decline to exercise jurisdiction over a dispute if the host state asserts that corruption tainted the investment. When tribunals close their doors to ag-grieved investors, tribunals increase the risks for investors and thus raise the cost of international investment. At the same time, the decision to decline jurisdiction creates a perverse incentive for host states to turn a blind eye to …

Unity And Diversity In International Law, William W. Park

Faculty Scholarship

The primordial Greek sea-god Proteus could alter his shape at will, notwithstanding that his divine substance remained the same. Reinventing himself by adapting to new circumstances, Proteus still stayed unchanged in essence.

Unlike the sea-god’s protean nature, the substance of international law may well undergo alterations when examined through the telescope of legal culture, or with predispositions of divergent educational backgrounds. For the thoughtful reader, scholarly speculation on such variations will be triggered by reading Is International Law International?. In that book, Professor Anthea Roberts explores a variety of elements in the teaching and practice of international law, viewed …

The New York Convention: A Self-Executing Treaty, Gary B. Born

Michigan Journal of International Law

The thesis of this Article is that uncertainty regarding the Convention’s status as a self-executing treaty of the United States is unwarranted and unfortunate. Instead, both the Convention’s provisions for recognition and enforcement of arbitration agreements (in Article II) and of arbitral awards (in Articles III, IV, V, and VI) should be regarded as self-executing and directly applicable in U.S. (and other national) courts. As discussed in detail below, this is because Article II establishes mandatory, complete, and comprehensive substantive rules, directed specifically to national courts, for the recognition and enforcement of international arbitration agreements. Likewise, the history and purposes …

A Global Treaty Override? The New Oecd Multilateral Tax Instrument And Its Limits, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Haiyan Xu

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article will proceed as follows. Section 2 summarizes the main provisions of the MLI. Section 3 discusses the purpose of tax treaties in the twenty-first century, because it can be argued that they are less necessary under conditions of tax competition. Section 4 raises the question whether tax treaties can be improved short of a full-fledged multilateral tax treaty by inserting a most favored nation (MFN) provision similar to those found in bilateral investment treaties. Such an MFN provision operates over time to create a de facto multilateral treaty without the negotiation of one. Section 5 concludes this article.

Book Review: The Concept Of Custom In International Law. By Anthony A. D’Amato. Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press, 1971. Pp. Xvi, 286. $9.50., John F. T. Murray

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

The Outsized Costs Of Investor–State Dispute Settlement, Lise Johnson, Lisa E. Sachs

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

The negotiation of several mega-treaties in 2015, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), and other regional agreements, has generated substantial public discussion about the protections and privileges afforded to multinational enterprises through the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism in these treaties. ISDS has increasingly raised concerns among certain governments and civil society groups, particularly as a growing number of ISDS cases involve investors challenging a range of governmental measures taken in good faith and in the public interest, including measures related to environmental protection, public health …

The New Law Of Treaties: The Codification Of The Law Of Treaties Concluded Between States And International Organizations Or Between Two Or More International Organizations, Neri Sybesma-Knol

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Rogue Debtors And Unanticipated Risk, S. I. Strong

Faculty Publications

Commercial actors are becoming increasingly concerned about the effect that various types of political risk, including the risk of sovereign default, has on their investments. This Essay considers the problem of rogue debtors (i.e., states that intentionally ignore their legal and financial obligations) as a type of unanticipated risk and analyzes how well various responses, including domestic litigation, interstate negotiation and investment arbitration, address investors’ needs. In particular, the discussion focuses on how effective investment arbitration is in overcoming a number of difficulties traditionally associated with rogue debtors and the various means by which states are attempting to bypass the …

Behavioral International Law, Tomer Broude

Tomer Broude

Economic analysis and rational choice have in the last decade made significant inroads into the study of international law and institutions, relying upon standard assumptions of perfect rationality of states and decision-makers. This approach is inadequate, both empirically and in its tendency towards outdated formulations of political theory. This article presents an alternative behavioral approach that provides new hypotheses addressing problems in international law while introducing empirically grounded concepts of real, observed rationality. First, I address methodological objections to behavioral analysis of international law: the focus of behavioral research on the individual; the empirical foundations of behavioral economics; and behavioral …

Differentiating Among International Investment Disputes, Julie A. Maupin

Faculty Scholarship

Can investor-state arbitration tribunals, which exercise jurisdiction over limited claims involving discrete parties, render awards that deliver individualized justice while also promoting systemic fairness, predictability and coherence? The answer, I argue, is a qualified yes – provided that the methods employed are tailored to the particular characteristics of each dispute. Using three well-known investment arbitrations as case studies, I illustrate that investor-state disputes vary widely in terms of their socio-legal, territorial, and political impacts. Significant variances along these three dimensions call for a differentiated approach to investor-state dispute resolution. I outline what such an approach might look like and analyze …

New Uncitral Arbitration Rules On Transparency: Application, Content And Next Steps, Lise Johnson

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

This paper discusses the UNCITRAL Rules on Transparency in Treaty-Based Investor-State Arbitration, which were adopted in August of 2013 and went into effect on April 1, 2014. It draws on negotiating history to elaborate on the content of and purpose of each of the Rules’ provisions, and identifies options for and barriers to applying these Rules in future arbitrations.

Discovery Under 28 U.S.C. §1782: Distinguishing International Commercial Arbitration And International Investment Arbitration, S. I. Strong

Faculty Publications

For many years, courts, commentators and counsel agreed that 28 U.S.C. §1782 – a somewhat extraordinary procedural device that allows U.S. courts to order discovery in the United States “for use in a proceeding in a foreign or international tribunal” – did not apply to disputes involving international arbitration. However, that presumption has come under challenge in recent years, particularly in the realm of investment arbitration, where the Chevron-Ecuador dispute has made Section 1782 requests a commonplace procedure. This Article takes a rigorous look at both the history and the future of Section 1782 in international arbitration, taking care to …

Pricing Compliance: When Formal Remedies Displace Reputational Sanctions, Rachel Brewster

Faculty Scholarship

The conventional wisdom in international law is that dispute resolution institutions sharpen the reputational costs to states. This article challenges this understanding by examining how the inclusion of dispute resolution tribunals and remedy regimes can alter reputational analysis by shifting the audience¹s understanding of how mandatory a treaty's substantive obligations are. Drawing on the distinction between prices and sanctions, this article contests the assumption that the introduction of a remedy regime in international agreements will regularly increase compliance with the treaty¹s substantive terms. Instead, some remedy regimes may 'price' deviations from the treaty¹s terms and thereby facilitate breaches of the …

Mass Procedures As A Form Of "Regulatory Arbitration" - Abaclat V. Argentine Republic And The International Investment Regime, S. I. Strong

Faculty Publications

This article takes a unique and intriguing look at the issues presented by Abaclat, considering the legitimacy of mass procedures from a regulatory perspective and using new governance theory to determine whether a new form of regulatory arbitration is currently being developed. In so doing, the discussion describes the basic parameters of regulatory litigation and analyzes the special problems that arise when regulatory litigation is used in the transnational context, then transfers those concepts into the arbitral realm. This sort of analysis, which is entirely novel as a matter of either public or private law, will shape future inquiries regarding …

The Boundaries Of Most Favored Nation Treatment In International Investment Law, Tony Cole

Michigan Journal of International Law

Contemporary international investment law is characterized by fragmentation. Disputes are heard by a variety of tribunals, which often are constituted solely for the purpose of hearing a single claim. The law applicable in a dispute is usually found in a bilateral agreement, applicable only between the two states connected to the dispute, rather than in a multilateral treaty or customary international law. Moreover, the international investment community itself is profoundly divided on many issues of substantive law, meaning both that the interpretation given to international investment law by a tribunal will be determined largely by those who sit on it, …

Negotiating With Deity: Strategies And Influences Related To Recent North Korean Negotiating Behavior , Jesse D. Steele

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

As images of nuclear missiles flash across television screens and news reports containing indiscernible Asian writing warn of conflict on the other side of the world, this article addresses one of the single greatest threats to global stability-the North Korean Nuclear Weapons Crisis-and assesses the negotiation strategies that have brought the world to its current situation. By looking at the historical negotiation tactics that have been utilized by each of the parties involved, particularly in light of societal norms and cultural influences, one can ascertain a great deal of insight regarding each party's respective strategies and objectives. This insight gleaned …

Introductory Note To The International Centre For Settlement Of Investment Disputes: Aes Summit Generation Ltd. V. Republic Of Hungary, Charles O. Verrill Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Considering Recalibration Of International Investment Agreements: Empirical Insights, Susan Franck

Susan D. Franck

No abstract provided.

Empirically Evaluating Claims About Investment Treaty Arbitration, Susan Franck

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

With the blossoming of empirical legal scholarship, there is an increased appreciation for the insights it offers issues of international importance. One area that can benefit from such inquiry is the resolution of disputes from investment treaties, which affects international relations, implicates international legality of domestic government conduct, and puts millions of taxpayer dollars at risk. While suggesting there has been a "litigation explosion", commentators make untested assertions about investment treaty disputes. Little empirical work transparently explores this area, however. As the first research that explains its methodology and results, this article is a modest attempt to evaluate claims about …

Foreign Direct Investment, Investment Treaty Arbitration, And The Rule Of Law, Susan Franck

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

In the last decade, there has been a surge in the number of multi-lateral and bilateral investment treaties governments have signed; meanwhile there have been dramatic increases in the amount of foreign direct investment (FDI); and, more recently, the number of claims brought under investment treaties has spiked. This Article examines the relationship amongst these factors and is the first to review the emerging empirical economic literature investigating whether investment treaties achieve their goal of promoting FDI. The Article then specifically evaluates the impact that the procedural right to arbitrate investment claims plays in the process of promoting FDI and …

The International Tribunal For The Law Of The Sea And The Possibility Of Judicial Settlement Of Disputes Involving The Fishing Entity Of Taiwan - Taking Ccsbt As An Example, Yann-Huei Song

San Diego International Law Journal

The main purpose of this paper is to assess the possibility of judicial settlement of fishery disputes involving the fishing entity of Taiwan and examine the legal questions regarding jurisdiction over the disputes. This analysis is based on the articles related to dispute settlement that are provided in the SBT Convention, the ITLOS Statute and the international law of the sea and the judicial practice of the ITLOS and other relevant arbitration courts in the Southern Bluefin Tuna case. Following this introductory section, Section II describes the establishment of the CCSBT and the selection and application of the methods of …

Circumventing The Supremacy Clause? Understanding The Constitutional Implications Of The United States' Treatment Of Treaty Obligations Through An Analysis Of The New York Convention, Amber A. Ward

San Diego International Law Journal

The United States participation in treaties and other international agreements is becoming more necessary and an increasingly prevalent occurrence as a result of globalization. The rapid pace of technological innovation and more effective means of transportation have caused our world to shrink, making countries even more interconnected. The corresponding explosion of international business and commercial transactions has resulted in high levels of risk and uncertainty due to a complex mix of laws, monetary factors, politics and cultures that vary across countries. For global players, it has become essential to have international agreements that can mitigate the risks inherent in international …