10 Breaches of State Contracts in the Interpretation and Application of International Investment Law in the Arbitration Case Law Involving Latin American Countries/Incumplimiento de contratos estatales en la interpretación y aplicación del derecho internacional de inversiones en la jurisprudencia de arbitraje en América Latina

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-108
Author(s):  
Alberto Alvarez-Jimenez

AbstractThe case law on non-precluded measures clauses, when they are successful, and the customary rule of necessity, when it fails, transfers significant risks to foreign investors and host States, respectively, during severe economic crises. Some risk-sharing mechanisms should be explored to achieve a more balanced result. This article presents the policy reasons in support of this approach and its normative basis: the principle of acceptable compensation, and illustrates that one way to introduce such mechanisms is through the determination by investor/State tribunals of the length of the breakdown, which is marked by the dates for its beginning and end. The article discusses economic research on when crises conclude, which could be useful to tribunals, and explores the determination on the beginning of economic collapses as a risk-sharing tool and shows how decisions of the Argentinean saga have achieved this result.


2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 434-454
Author(s):  
Olabisi D Akinkugbe

Abstract International investment disputes involving African States before the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) have generated significant critical inquiry. Yet, not enough academic literature has been devoted to accounting for the implications that arise from the disputes involving African States to the development of the ICSID case law and international investment law in general. This article addresses this gap by conceptualizing African States parties before ICSID tribunals as reverse contributors. While the article acknowledges the critiques of ICSID vis-à-vis African State parties, it contends that, over time, the involvement of African States in ICSID disputes has generated opportunities for the clarification, confirmation and development of ICSID jurisprudence. Although the article is not a case for African exceptionalism, it contributes to the dearth of materials that revisit the participation of African States before ICSID, while simultaneously acknowledging the need for reforms.


2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-222
Author(s):  
Sondra Faccio

In the last few years, the principle of proportionality has appeared with a certain frequency in international investment case law: arbitrators have employed it to determine whether the State’s regulatory measure under scrutiny represents a form of indirect expropriation, to assess violations of the fair and equitable treatment (‘fet’) standard, to counterbalance competing obligations drawn from international investment law and international human rights law, and to assess compensation. This article will focus on the so-called “quantum phase” – the part of the award devoted to the assessment of the monetary compensation due to the foreign investor for the breach of the investment treaty provision – and will discuss whether the principle of proportionality can effectively play a role in the assessment of compensation. The work will start from the analysis of the case of Joseph Charles Lemire v. Ukraine, where arbitrators expressly resorted to proportionality to verify whether the indemnity awarded to the claimant for the breach of the fet standard was adequate in light of the specific characteristics of the investment lato sensu and the investor, to then approach the issue of proportionality more in detail.


2009 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 353-386 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Thuo Gathii

AbstractThis article discusses the role war has played in shaping the rules of international investment law from the late nineteenth century. At the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, the move towards institutions, such as arbitration forums, and rules as an alternative to the use of force gave new impetus to the growth of international commercial law and related institutions. These rules and institutions represented the hope that the use of force would be eclipsed as States moved forward towards more cooperative, consensual and non-coercive mechanisms of dispute settlement. Capital-importing states in Latin America however became acutely aware that these institutions and rules did not completely erase the coercive and uneven relations they had with capital-exporting states. In era after era of reformism from the Calvo era, to the NIEO and to the era in opposition to neo-liberal economic governance, capital-importing States have continued to resist and sometimes adapt to the coercive realities of the rules of international investment law. The article begins by tracing the origin of the Drago doctrine as a response to the practice of European states that engaged in aggression and conquest against militarily and economically weaker Latin American states as a means of collecting debts owed to their citizens. It then shows that while the denouement of forcible measures to resolve contract debt was overstated by early twentieth century international lawyers, international law nevertheless provided avenues for dispute settlement outside the use of force in international commercial relations. Thus while protecting commerce from the scourge of war was a primary inspiration for the post-Second World War international economic order, the author shows how war has nevertheless continued to be an animating factor for former colonies particularly with regard to their State responsibility for war damage in the context of foreign investment.


2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 767-792 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luke Nottage ◽  
Sakda Thanitcul

Abstract The dynamic economies of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have individually concluded many standalone bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and a growing number of bilateral and regional free trade agreements (FTAs), supplemented by intra-ASEAN and ‘ASEAN+’ agreements. These aim to facilitate and protect burgeoning foreign direct investment (FDI) flows, outlined in Part 2, including large outflows recently from several states. Part 3 outlines treaty-making trends, including considerable consistency from many member states as well as some interesting innovations, against the backdrop of persistent problems of poor governance. Part 4 highlights nonetheless the relative paucity of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) claims against ASEAN member states, with only a few adverse awards, which helps explain why treaty-based ISDS has not been abandoned. Part 5 also notes several contributions from this ISDS case law to international investment law, and Southeast Asia’s potential to keep influencing its trajectory.


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