This new edition of what has rapidly become the pre-eminent work on the role of municipal law in investment treaty arbitration is justified not only by the accelerating appearance of investment treaty awards but also by the continuing, serious flaws in the application of international law by investment treaty arbitral tribunals. As a matter of international law, arbitrators need to be attentive to the circumstances where municipal law supplies the necessary substantive legal rule. They will find this book to be the best guide to this complex challenge. The author has maintained the overall structure of the first edition and added a new chapter on Article 42 of the ICSID Convention. Certain descriptions and arguments have been rethought and revised to clarify their significance and their applicability. The treatment focuses on the role of municipal law in providing the substance for concepts such as contracts, property rights, and shareholders’ rights, which are relevant in the international investment treaty context but are not regulated under international law. Among the complex questions considered are the following: - If the application of international law requires a renvoi to municipal law, how should that renvoi be conducted? - In investment disputes, what role, if any, should municipal law have in assessing State attribution under international law? - Should shareholders receive compensation for damages suffered by their company due to a violation of an international obligation vis-à-vis the company? - Does a contractual right exist to foreign investment ‘property’? - Under what conditions may a violation of municipal law become internationally wrongful? - May foreign investors rely on ‘expectations’ as an autonomous source of rights in investment treaty disputes? - Does an alleged breach of an umbrella clause transform a breach of contract claim covered by municipal law into an international law claim? The chapters answer these and many other questions in extraordinary depth, drawing on detailed analyses of the issues and implications posed by major relevant cases and arbitral decisions. The author’s analysis of the unavoidable interaction of municipal law and international law in investment treaty arbitration – and the consequences stemming from rejecting the application of municipal law when relevant – will continue to prove of immeasurable value to arbitrators, arbitration counsel, corporate counsel, and scholars of international law.

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.

Investment treaty arbitration (sometimes called investor-state dispute settlement or ISDS) has become a flashpoint in the backlash against globalization, with costs becoming an area of core scrutiny. Yet "conventional wisdom" about costs is not necessarily wise. To separate fact from fiction, this book tests claims about investment arbitration and fiscal costs against data so that policy reforms can be informed by scientific evidence. The exercise is critical, as investment treaties grant international arbitrators the power to order states-both rich and poor-to pay potentially millions of dollars to foreign investors when states violate the international law commitments made in the treaties. Meanwhile, the cost to access and defend the arbitration can also climb to millions of dollars. This book uses insights drawn from cognitive psychology and hard data to explore the reality of investment treaty arbitration, identify core demographics and basic information on outcomes, and drill down on the costs of parties' counsel and arbitral tribunals. It offers a nuanced analysis of how and when cost-shifting occurs, parses tribunals' rationalization (or lack thereof) of cost assessments, and models the variables most likely to predict costs, using data to point the way towards evidence-based normative reform. With an intelligent interdisciplinary approach that speaks to ongoing reform at entities like the World Bank's ICSID and UNCITRAL, this book provides the most up-to-date study of investment treaty dispute settlement, offering new insights that will shape the direction of investment treaty and arbitration reform more broadly.

With his comparative and analytical review of China's treaty policy and practice in international investment law, Vaccaro-Incisa draws the most detailed, comprehensive, effective, and objective work ever published on this subject.

International investment law is in a state of evolution. With the advent of investor-State arbitration in the latter part of the twentieth century - and its exponential growth over the last decade - new levels of complexity, uncertainty and substantive expansion are emerging. States continue to enter into investment treaties and the number of investor-State arbitration claims continues to rise. At the same time, the various participants in investment treaty arbitration are faced with increasingly difficult issues concerning the fundamental character of the investment treaty regime, the role of the actors in international investment law, the new significance of procedure in the settlement of disputes and the emergence of cross-cutting issues. Bringing together established scholars and practitioners, as well as members of a new generation of international investment lawyers, this volume examines these developments and provides a balanced assessment of the challenges being faced in the field.

This volume celebrates the first fifty years of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) by presenting the landmark cases that have been decided under its auspices. These cases have addressed every aspect of investment disputes: jurisdictional thresholds; the substantive obligations found in investment treaties, contracts, and legislation; questions of general international law; and a number of novel procedural issues. Each chapter, written by an expert on the chapter’s particular focus, looks at an international investment law topic through the lens of one or more of these leading cases, analyzing what the case held, how it has been applied, and its overall significance to the development of international investment law. These topics include: - applicable law; - res judicata in investor-State arbitration; - notion of investment; - investor nationality; - consent to arbitration; - substantive standards of treatment; - consequences of corruption in investor-State arbitration; - State defenses - counter-claims; - assessment of damages and cost considerations; - ICSID Arbitration Rule 41(5) objections; - mass claims, consolidation and parallel proceedings; - provisional measures; - arbitrator challenges; - transparency and amicus curiae; and - annulment. Because the law of international investment continues to grow in importance in an ever globalizing world, this book is more than a fitting way to mark the past fifty years and to welcome the next fifty years of development. It will prove both educational for practitioners new to the field and informative for seasoned investment lawyers. Moreover, the book itself is a landmark that will be of great value to professionals, scholars and students interested in international investment law.