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Impartiality And The Construction Of Trust In Investor-State Dispute Settlement, Stavros Brekoulakis, Anna Howard

Singapore International Dispute Resolution Academy

This article analyses impartiality in investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) by identifying the way that the parties’ trust in arbitrators is constructed. Drawing on the findings of a large-scale empirical project, it questions the applicability of an orthodox judicial doctrine of impartiality to ISDS on the grounds that trust in arbitrators is constructed on a fundamentally different basis from that of trust in judges. The primary feature of a judicial doctrine of impartiality is that trust is founded on an absolutist approach to impartiality which is intended to ensure that judges have no predispositions to parties. In contrast, trust in ISDS …