This book demonstrates how the public international law character of investment treaty arbitration has impacted on the dispute settlement procedure.

This volume contains the papers and proceedings of the eighth annual Juris Conference addressing new developments in investment treaty arbitration with a focus on the fundamental issues that have drawn some of the greatest controversies in the jurisprudence over the past few years. The four topics addressed in this book include: Challenges to Arbitrators: Should the Challenge Process Be Overhauled?New Developments in Definition of "Investment": What Is the Role of the Concept of "Property" in Investment Arbitration?Is Investment Treaty Arbitration a Mechanism to Second-guess Governments' Exercise of Administrative Discretion: Public Law or Lex Investoria?Awarding Damages: Proportionality, Contributory Fault, and Arbitral Tribunals' Discretion or Toss of a Coin? Contributors: Meriam N. Alrashid Paul Barker Julie Bédard Alexander Bĕlohlávek Amal Bouchenaki Mark N. Bravin Kate Brown de Vejar Julián Cárdenas Garcia Tina Cicchetti Robert A. DeRise Paolo Di Rosa James Egerton-Vernon Timothy L. Foden George K. Foster John Y. Gotanda George Kahale III Jonathan S. Kallmer Joshua Karton Matthew S. Kronby Pablo D. López Zadicoff Juan Felipe Merizalde Urdaneta Craig Miles Caline Mouawad Timothy G. Nelson Michael Nolan Eloïse Obadia Sirshar Qureshi Charles E. Roh Charles B. Rosenberg Margarita R. Sánchez Matthew D. Slater Fernando A. Tupa Janet M. Whittaker

This book outlines the principles behind the international law of foreign investment. The main focus is on the law governed by bilateral and multilateral investment treaties. It traces the purpose, context, and evolution of the clauses and provisions characteristic of contemporary investment treaties, and analyses the case law, interpreting the issues raised by standard clauses. Particular consideration is given to broad treaty-rules whose understanding in practice has mainly been shaped by their interpretation and application by international tribunals. In addition, the book introduces the dispute settlement mechanisms for enforcing investment law, outlining the operation of Investor-State arbitration. Combining a systematic analytical study of the texts and principles underlying investment law with a jurisprudential analysis of the case law arising in international tribunals, this book offers an ideal introduction to the principles of international investment law and arbitration, for students, scholars, and practitioners alike.

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.

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 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.

This monograph considers the ramifications of the legal regime that governs transborder capital flows. This regime consists principally of a network of some 3,000 investment treaties, as well as a growing body of arbitral decisions. Professor Alvarez contends that the contemporary international investment regime should no longer be described as a species of territorial “empire” imposed by rich capital exporters on capital importers. He examines the evolution of investment treaties and investor-State jurisprudence constante and identifies the connections between these and general trends within public international law, including the increased resort to treaties (“treatification”), growing risks to the law’s consistency (“fragmentation”), and the proliferation of forms of international adjudication (“judicialization”). Professor Alvarez also considers whether the regime’s efforts to “balance” the needs of non-State investors and sovereigns ought to be characterized as “global administrative law”, as a form of “constitutionalization”, or as an increasingly human-rights-centred enterprise.