The Structure of Investment Arbitration

Description

Although a State’s treatment of foreign investors has long been regulated by international law, it is only recently that international investment law has emerged as an independent discipline in its own right. In recent decades the practical success of investment arbitration has allowed international investment law to develop both its own cadre of academic and professional specialists and its own legal doctrines. This book analyses the structure of international investment law, as it has developed through the practice of investment arbitration in order to see how a variety of international investment law doctrines should be understood and applied. The book demonstrates how a structural analysis can shed light on several major controversies within investment law and also examines what an "investment" actually is. The book offers an original interpretative approach to the resolution of problems in international investment law, and so is one of the few books within the field to attempt to give investment law a solid theoretical basis. It also focuses on only a select number of problems, rather than attempting to deliver the universal coverage currently popular for investment law books. As a result, those issues that are addressed get a detailed discussion rarely available in competing texts. Cover......Page 1 Half Title......Page 2 Title Page......Page 4 Copyright Page......Page 5 Table of Contents......Page 8 Acknowledgements......Page 12 Introduction ......Page 14 1 Introduction......Page 20 2 Interpretation of power-conferring treaties......Page 22 3 The balance between power-conferral and retention of sovereignty in the ICSID Convention......Page 25 4 The controversy regarding the meaning of ‘investment’ in the ICSID Convention......Page 27 5 The power of the parties to a dispute to define ‘investment’ under Article 25(1) of the ICSID Convention......Page 32 6 The power of Home and Host States to define ‘investment’ in Article 25(1) of the ICSID Convention through mutual agreement under Article 64 of the ICSID Convention......Page 35 7.1 The problem of interpretative subjectivity......Page 39 7.2 Determination of the minimum content of an ‘investment’ under Article 25(1) of the ICSID Convention......Page 41 8 Conclusion......Page 42 1 Introduction......Page 44 2 The incorporation of Article 25(4) into the ICSID Convention......Page 45 3 Article 25(4) notifications as communications to investors......Page 49 4 Article 25(4) notifications as interpretive aids......Page 50 5 Conflicts between an Article 25(4) notification and a ‘specific consent’ to ICSID arbitration......Page 54 6 The direct legal effect of Article 25(4) notifications......Page 56 6.1 Case I......Page 57 6.3 Case III......Page 58 6.4 Case IV......Page 59 7 Conclusion......Page 60 1 Introduction......Page 62 2 The use of non-binding instruments in investment arbitration......Page 63 3.1 The legitimacy of the use of authoritative instruments by investment arbitration tribunals......Page 68 3.2 The current use of authoritative instruments in investment arbitration......Page 70 3.3 Citation of soft law instruments in investment arbitration awards......Page 72 3.4 Citation of other authoritative instruments in investment arbitration awards......Page 74 4.1 The legitimacy of the use of persuasive instruments by investment arbitration tribunals......Page 75 4.2 The current use of persuasive instruments in investment arbitration......Page 77 4.3 Citation of persuasive instruments in investment arbitration awards......Page 79 5 Conclusion......Page 80 1 Introduction......Page 81 2 Public international law......Page 82 2.1 Treatment of enemy-owned private investments under the law of armed conflict......Page 83 2.2 The social structure of the minimum standard of treatment......Page 85 2.3 The traditional formulation of the minimum standard of treatment......Page 88 2.4 The impact on the minimum standard of treatment of the increased recognition given to non-State entities in contemporary public international law......Page 90 2.5 The application of the minimum standard of treatment in the context of international investment......Page 92 2.6 Conclusion: the application of the minimum standard of treatment to enemy-owned investments in times of armed conflict......Page 93 3.1 The impact of armed conflict on investment treaties......Page 95 3.2 Sequestration as indirect expropriatio......Page 97 4 Conclusion......Page 99 1 Introduction......Page 100 2 The historical development of most-favoured nation treatment......Page 102 3 Most-favoured nation clauses and bilateral investment treaties......Page 107 4.1 Anglo-Iranian Oil: the treaty-boundedness of most-favoured nation clauses......Page 110 4.2 Rights of Nationals of the United States of America in Morocco: the temporality of most-favoured nation clauses......Page 112 4.3 The Ambatielos arbitration: ejusdem generis......Page 113 5 Conclusion......Page 115 2 The instantaneous effect of a most-favoured nation clause......Page 116 2.1 The ‘right to claim’ understanding of most-favoured nation obligations......Page 117 2.3 The justification for the ‘instantaneous obligation’ understanding in investment arbitration......Page 118 3 The predominantly forward-looking nature of most-favoured nation clauses in investment arbitration......Page 119 3.1 The role of intent in interpreting most-favoured nation clauses in investment treaties......Page 120 3.2 Party intent as to the extension of most-favoured nation clauses to already-existing more favourable treatment......Page 121 3.3 Interpretation of most-favoured nation clauses and the interconnectedness of treaty rights......Page 123 3.4 Most-favoured nation clauses and subsequent adoptions of already-existing more favourable treatment......Page 126 4 Non-State beneficiaries of most-favoured nation clauses in investment treaties as classes, not individual claimants......Page 127 5 The ‘exclusionary effect’ of a most-favoured nation clause......Page 129 6 Conclusion......Page 130 1 Introduction......Page 132 2 Maffezini v Spain: the ability of dispute resolution procedures to affect the ‘treatment’ received by investors......Page 135 3 Dispute resolution procedures and the ‘favourability’ of ‘treatment’ under a most-favoured nation clause......Page 137 3.1 Dispute resolution procedures as ‘treatment’ of investors......Page 138 3.2 Dispute resolution procedures and the ‘favourability’ of substantive treaty promises......Page 140 4 Applications......Page 142 4.1 The availability to an investor, through a most-favoured nation clause, of a dispute resolution forum to which a Host State has never consented......Page 143 4.2 The impact of a most-favoured nation clause on the definition of ‘investor’ or ‘investment’ included in the Basic Treaty......Page 145 5 Conclusion: an important limitation on the application of most-favoured nation clauses to dispute resolution procedures......Page 147 Notes......Page 152