01260195 - International Investments Arbitration

In 1965, the World Bank adopted the Washington Convention, establishing the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), and allowing private parties to resort directly to international arbitration against States for harm done to their investments. Since then, as a result of the wide adoption of bilateral and multilateral investment protection treaties, there has been an outbreak of investor-State arbitrations that neither the drafters of the Convention nor the international community at large had anticipated.

This course will explore where investment treaty arbitration stands today, after over two decades of blooming and growth. In particular: How has the arbitral case law tackled the most complex questions of international law? To what extent has the interplay between international arbitration and international law nourished each of these fields of law? How have other legal orders, notably the EU legal order, reacted to rise of international investment disputes?

During the course, these questions will be addressed through a deep immersion into the investment arbitration process, including an examination of the concepts of jurisdiction and admissibility (notion of investment; nationality of investors, both physical and juridical persons; temporal application of treaties; abuse of process; etc.); the interaction between contractual and treaty breaches; treaty interpretation; and strategic options in investor-State arbitration.

3 credits or 1.5 US credits