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Appointing Arbitrators: Tenure, Public Confidence, And A Middle Road For Isds Reform, Thomas D. Grant, F. Scott Kieff

Michigan Journal of International Law

Many governments now join academics and activists in questioning whether ad hoc tribunals, which comprise private individuals holding no tenured role on a court, ought to be entrusted with deciding cases, where the resultant awards sometimes impose significant financial burdens on the respondent State, constrain the State’s regulatory choices, and affect the interests of third parties. Investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS), during the great expansion of its practice over the past quarter century, has relied on party-appointed arbitrators to constitute the ad hoc tribunals that hear and decide cases that investors bring. Moved by a turn of public sentiment in recent …