Today there are more than 2,500 bilateral investment treaties (BITs) around the world. Most of these investment protection treaties offer foreign investors a direct cause of action to claim damages against host-states before international arbitral tribunals. This procedure, together with the requirement of compensation in indirect expropriations and the fair and equitable treatment standard, have transformed the way we think about state liability in international law. We live in the BIT generation, a world where BITs define the scope and conditions according to which states are economically accountable for the consequences of regulatory change and administrative action. Investment arbitration in the BIT generation carries new functions which pose unprecedented normative challenges, such as the arbitral bodies established to resolve investor/state disputes defining the relationship between property rights and the public interest. They also review state action for arbitrariness, and define the proper tests under which that review should proceed. State Liability in Investment Treaty Arbitration is an interdisciplinary work, aimed at academics and practitioners, which focuses on five key dimensions of BIT arbitration. First, it analyses the past practice of state responsibility for injuries to aliens, placing the BIT generation in historical perspective. Second, it develops a descriptive law-and-economics model that explains the proliferation of BITs, and why they are all worded so similarly. Third, it addresses the legitimacy deficits of this new form of dispute settlement, weighing its potential advantages and democratic shortfalls. Fourth, it gives a comparative overview of the universal tension between property rights and the public interest, and the problems and challenges associated with liability grounded in illegal and arbitrary state action. Finally, it presents a detailed legal study of the current state of BIT jurisprudence regarding indirect expropriations and the fair and equitable treatment clause. This title is included in Bloomsbury Professional's International Arbitration online service.

Nowhere in the world has the process of investment treaty arbitration been more volatile or unpredictable than in Latin America. Although the rush of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) entered into by Latin American countries during the 1990s seemed to promise stable guarantees and security for investors, recent years have produced an ever increasing number of arbitrations before international tribunals involving claims by foreign investors amounting to millions and even billions of dollars. In many cases, the disputes have arisen from regulatory measures involving matters of public interest, including the general welfare, health, environment, security, or economy. In five deeply informative and challenging essays by well-known authorities in various aspects of Latin American and/or international investment legal practice, this book investigates the issues affecting arbitration of disputes invoking Latin American BITs. In-depth coverage includes the following: emerging controversies and conflicts, as well as the serious academic debates regarding varying interpretations of treaty terms by different arbitral tribunals; ICSID cases concluded to date against Latin American States and cases that have been dismissed on jurisdictional grounds; detailed analysis of non-precluded measures provisions, the state of necessity defence, and State liability for investor harms in exceptional circumstances (particularly in connection with water rights); a guide for government officials managing investment treaty obligations and investor-State disputes; procedural and substantive issues that States should consider in connection with their investment obligations and the handling of claims; and options available to address investment treaty provisions that States find troubling and the utility and effectiveness of the recommendations presented. The book demonstrates that there is a compelling need for States to develop greater awareness of their investment treaty obligations with a view to both diminishing the likelihood of claims and properly managing those that are submitted to arbitration. It describes the stocktaking process that should form part of any Stateand’s efforts to manage its investment treaty obligations and claims by investors that the State has breached those obligations. With specific recommendations for the effective administration of State obligations and investor-State disputes, the book offers eminently practical utility in addition to its penetrating theoretical analysis, and as such constitutes an enormously valuable resource for all parties concerned in Latin American investment.

Edited by Shaheeza Lalani and Rodrigo Polanco Lazo, The Role of the State in Investor-State Arbitration is a collection of contributions from lawyers, arbitrators and political scientists on the development of the concept of the “State” in a field that currently presents an increasing number of controversial disputes: Investor-State Arbitration. The book analyzes the limits of the host State as a regulator, studying issues such as attribution and the role of State-Owned Enterprises and sub-State entities; the changing role of the home State in Investor-State disputes, including its direct participation in Investor-State arbitration and State to State dispute settlement; and the overall role that both home and host States can play in the improvement of Investor-State Dispute Settlement.

Is it Time for a Regime Change? Protecting International Energy Investments against Political Risk. The 2013 seventh annual Juris investment arbitration conference put in issue the special role of international energy projects in the development of investor-state arbitration. It is currently one of the most active sectors of investor-state arbitration. The “facts” of the energy sector therefore are particularly well-developed in international jurisprudence. The similarities in the applicable law of investment protection between the energy sector and other sectors tend to hide from view what our panelists repeatedly uncovered: it is the facts of energy disputes that significantly set them apart. The concerns of sovereign dominion over national energy production and the protection of foreign investors in the energy sector against stranding large investments served as a key point of departure for discussions. The four questions that the Conference addressed include: The Energy Sector, Investment Arbitration and the ECT: Carving out a Special Regime? Energy Contracts and BITS – Is it Fair and Equitable to be Under the Umbrella? Mulitparty Investor Disputes in the Energy Sector – Preclusion, Consolidation or Free-For-All? Measure by Measure? Calculating Damages in Energy Disputes The discussion and debate that followed is provided in this book and sure to be of tremendous value to the international business lawyer, litigation specialist or trade and investment law policy expert.

A study of state responsibility for acts committed in the course of different stages of adjudicatory process.

At the nexus between international investment law, climate law, and human rights law, States’ obligations to protect foreign investments clash with their right – or even their duty – to regulate to protect the planet and people. State efforts at climate change mitigation and adaptation have already triggered claims of liability under the investor-protection provisions of bilateral and multilateral investment treaties. In this comprehensive elaboration on the topic, stellar experts and practitioners describe different types of climate-related investment disputes, provide a thorough analysis of the unique procedural issues that emerge in such disputes, and evaluate the proper balance between States’ right to regulate to fight climate change and their obligations towards foreign investors. Each of the book’s contributions offers a penetrating perspective on this complex matter, touching on such aspects as the following: investment disputes arising from States’ climate measures or actions; whether and how states can file counterclaims against investors in such disputes; the appropriate role for climate science at various stages of arbitration; how to assess damages in cases involving fossil assets left stranded by the climate transition; and whether, on balance, existing international investment law supports or hinders the global energy transition. Along the way, arbitrators and other practitioners will gain insight into how to argue, defend, and assess climate-related investment disputes, using not only investment-treaty case law but also international climate agreements, human rights law, and environmental law. Policymakers are shown ways to design and implement climate policy and investment treaties in order to avoid claims by foreign investors. For policymakers, treaty and contract negotiators, dispute resolution lawyers, and international organizations, no other resource provides such incisive discussion of how to balance treaty-based investment protection against states’ inherent duty to regulate in the public interest.

In Reshaping the Investor-State Dispute Settlement System: Journeys for the 21st Century, editors Jean E. Kalicki and Anna Joubin-Bret offer for the first time a broad compendium of practical suggestions for reform of the current system of resolving international investment treaty disputes. The increase in cases against States and their challenge to public policy measures has generated a strong debate, usually framed by complaints about a perceived lack of legitimacy, consistency and predictability. While some ideas have been proposed for improvement, there has never before been a book systematically focusing on constructive paths forward. This volume features 38 chapters by almost 50 leading contributors, all offering concrete proposals to improve the ISDS system for the 21st century.

Traditionally, international investment law was conceptualised as a set of norms aiming to ensure good governance for foreign investors, in exchange for their capital and know-how. However, the more recent narratives postulate that investment treaties and investor–state arbitration can lead to better governance not just for foreign investors but also for host state communities. Investment treaty law can arguably foster good governance by holding host governments liable for a failure to ensure transparency, stability, predictability and consistency in their dealings with foreign investors. The recent proliferation of such narratives in investment treaty practice, arbitral awards and academic literature raises questions as to their juridical, conceptual and empirical underpinnings. What has propelled good governance from a set of normative ideals to enforceable treaty standards? Does international investment law possess the necessary characteristics to inspire changes at the national level? How do host states respond to investment treaty law? The overarching objective of this monograph is to unpack existing assumptions concerning the effects of international investment law on host states. By combining doctrinal, empirical, comparative analysis and unveiling the emerging 'nationally felt' responses to international investment norms, the book aims to facilitate a more informed understanding of the present contours and the nature of the interplay between international investment norms and national realities.

The recent explosion of investment treaty arbitration marks a revolutionary change in both international and public law, above all because it demonstrates how states have unwittingly privatized key powers of the courts in public law. This book outlines investment treaty arbitration as a public law system, by precisely demonstrating the significance of giving arbitrators comprehensive jurisdiction to decide regulatory disputes between business and state. In doing so, it exposes some startling consequences of transplanting rules of commercial arbitration into the regulatory sphere. First, private arbitrators can award compensation to investors in ways that go well beyond domestic systems of state liability in public law. Second, these awards can be enforced in as many as 165 countries, making them more widely enforceable than other judicial decisions in public law. Third, public law can be interpreted in private as a matter of course, without any appeal to a court to correct errors of law. The conflict between private arbitration and public law poses a serious challenge to open and accountable judging. But the critical flaw of the system - hitherto neglected - is its threat to judicial independence based on security of tenure. Under investment treaties, business claims against the state are decided by privately-contracted adjudicators, who win appointments only as more claims are brought. Thus, as the book explains, the 'judge' has a financial stake in how public law is interpreted and in the outcome of the dispute. While it is laudable to use international adjudication to resolve controversial disputes, the benefits of a global economy are no excuse for corrupting our historic tradition of independent courts.

Damages in Investor-State Arbitration: Current Issues and Challenges addresses specificities of the assessment of damages in investor-state disputes, reflecting the tensions between the sovereignty and self-determination of states and their legal obligations towards foreign investors. These tensions are primarily present in the context of compensation for expropriation, but other commitments of host states undertaken in bilateral investment treaties and contracts with foreign investors may also be in conflict with changing political and economic circumstances. With this background, the calculation of damages becomes a complex endeavor in each case. The lack of valuation principles that are uniformly accepted and implemented leads to uncertainty and unpredictability in practice. The present analysis tries to identify the most important issues and challenges, such as the choice of the valuation date, appropriate valuation methods, moral damages, and the awarding of interest.