Int´l Investment Law in the Practice of Arbitration II

In the past ten years investment dispute settlement by arbitration has increased considerably. Especially the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), as part of the World Bank Group, has, apart from ad hoc and UNCITRAL - Arbitration, significantly shaped the substantive investment law. The current project should establish the actual substantive Investment Law by analysing the legal practice of international arbitral tribunals. This purpose involves to a large extent the interpretation and application of identical or similar treaty provisions which can be found in a dense network of bilateral and even multilateral investment treaties. The main research topics will be admission requirements, protection standards, expropriation protection and compensation standards for expropriations of foreign investment.

This research project aimed at conducting an analysis of the decisions and awards rendered by investment tribunals operating under the auspices of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) as well as other institutionalized and ad hoc arbitrations. Over the last few years arbitral practice in the area of investment law has grown considerably and due to increased transparency more and more decisions have become publicly available and have consequently been subjected to scholarly scrutiny and analysis. The growing number of cases brought primarily under bilateral investment treaties (BITs), but also investment chapters contained in multilateral treaties like the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) or the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), demonstrates the relevance of investor-state dispute settlement. The research conducted during this project showed that international investment tribunals have made an important contribution to provide a better understanding of the frequently very vaguely formulated standards of treatment which foreign investors and investments should be given by host states. At the same time investment arbitration is still a very much evolving field. Disputes have brought up new and controversial issues that can certainly not be conclusively answered yet and that will continue to be discussed by future investment tribunals.