Análisis

Nuevas Ideas para Empoderar a los Trabajadores de Estados Unidos y Europa en el TTIP

Este documento proporciona una visión general de cómo la Unión Europea y los Estados Unidos promueven los derechos laborales en los acuerdos comerciales y de inversión. Luego advierte que el lenguaje en los capítulos de inversión y coherencia regulatoria puede contradecir el lenguaje en los capítulos de derechos laborales. Finalmente, el documento sugiere formas en que TTIP puede ser rediseñado para beneficiar a los trabajadores y promover el empleo, basado en entrevistas con 23 eminentes académicos, así como ideas originales del autor.

Los Méritos y Limitaciones de las Cláusulas de Excepción en la Práctica Contemporánea de los Tratados de Inversión

El régimen de los acuerdos internacionales de inversión (AIIs) está recibiendo una atención pública sin precedentes. Los principales ejemplos son los debates en torno a la celebración del Acuerdo Económico […]

Rethinking Investment-Related Dispute Settlement

Investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS), a concept much unknown to the broader public and even top policy-makers only a year ago, is making headlines, especially as the European Union and the […]

Expertos en Reunión de la UNCTAD dan forma a las opciones de reforma de AII

Más de 300 expertos y delegados de Estados miembros, organizaciones internacionales, ONGs, el sector privado y académicos asistieron a la Reunión sobre la Transformación del Régimen de Acuerdos Internacionales de […]

Derecho de las Inversiones y el 1%: ¿De qué lado estar?

La creciente concentración de la riqueza—a menudo referida como “el tema del 1%”—plantea cuestiones graves. El Foro Económico Mundial, en sus diez principales tendencias de 2015, afirmó que: En el […]

Los Acuerdos de Cooperación y Facilitación de Inversiones (ACFIs) entre Brasil y Mozambique y entre Brasil y Angola: una descripción general

Brasil y Mozambique firmaron el 30 de marzo de 2015 el primer Acuerdo de Cooperación y Facilitación de Inversiones (ACFI) basado en el nuevo modelo de tratado bilateral de inversión (TBI) de Brasil. El segundo se firmó el 1 de abril de 2015 entre Brasil y Angola. A diferencia de los TBI tradicionales, que están orientados a la protección de los inversores, los ACFI se centran principalmente en la cooperación y la facilitación de inversiones. Promueven formas amigables de resolver disputas y proponen la solución de disputas entre estados como respaldo; en particular, no incluyen disposiciones sobre arbitraje inversor-estado.

Everyone’s Doing It: The Acceptance, Effectiveness and Legality of Performance Requirements

For policymakers charged with investment portfolios, the challenge is not simply about attracting greater flows of foreign direct investment (FDI). At least as important is trying to maximize the domestic […]

Political Change vs. Legal Stability: Problems Arising from the Application of Investment Treaties in Transitions from Authoritarian Rule

Investment treaties protect foreign investors from a range of host state conduct that affects their investments. One influential view is that the purpose of these treaties is to provide legal […]

China’s New Outward Investment Measures: Going Global in a Sustainable Way?

Until recently, businesses in China seeking to make investments abroad had to go through a rigorous approval process separately conducted by two ministry-level agencies or their provincial counterparts. However, for […]

Who is Afraid of Investor-State Arbitration? Unpacking the Riddle of ‘No Greater Rights’ in the TTIP

The Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) has been creating expectations and stirring fears ever since it was announced by EU Commission President José Manuel Barroso and US President Barack […]

Risky Business or Risky Politics: What Explains Investor-State Disputes?

While there is a fair amount of scholarly work on the determinants of expropriation, we know less about the political and economic conditions under which the broader category of investor-state disputes take place. This article provides a statistical analysis of political and economic factors that contribute to the likelihood of an investor-state dispute; and a qualitative coding of measures which have resulted in arbitration cases.

Opening the Door to Foreign Investment? An Analysis of Bolivia’s New Investment Promotion Law

On April 4, 2014, Bolivian President Evo Morales promulgated a law establishing the general legal and institutional framework to promote domestic and foreign investment in Bolivia, while contributing to socio-economic development. This note provides an overview and analysis of the main features of Bolivia’s new law, within the context of the country’s investment law and policy, and international trends.

Aron Broches and the Withdrawal of Unilateral Offers of Consent to Investor-State Arbitration

Several States have terminated bilateral investment treaties as they came up for renewal. The effectiveness of BIT termination, however, is limited by the “survival clauses” that are frequently included in IIAs. These provisions state that even after the treaty is terminated it will continue to apply to investments that were made while the treaty was in force for an additional 10 or 15 years.

ICSID’s Annulment Decision in Impregilo v. Argentina: Finality of Awards v. Legal Correctness

On January 24, 2014, an ICSID ad-hoc annulment committee dismissed a request by the Argentine Republic to annul a June 2011 arbitral award for harm suffered to an investment in a Buenos Aires water services concession. While this was one of the smaller awards rendered against Argentina, it is nonetheless of utmost significance for Argentina and all countries facing claims under investment treaties.

Improving Investment Treaties through General Exceptions Provisions: The Australian Example

The recent Australian elections were decided mostly by domestic policy issues, but their outcome had an impact beyond the border as the new government decided to rethink Australia’s somewhat unique view on the international investment regime. In changing course, has the Australian government simply joined the rest of the world?

Foreign Investment in Farmland and Water: 10 Steps for Better Contracts

The International Institute for Sustainable Development studied seventy contracts between states and foreign investors involving long-term leases of farmland. We have come up with our own model contract that we believe answers many of these concerns.

The Practice of Responsible Investment Principles in Larger-Scale Agricultural Investments

The recent and ongoing trend towards corporate, especially foreign, investment in developing countries’ agricultural sectors has evoked sharply contrasting attitudes. For some, this “rediscovery” of agriculture as a focus of investment provides opportunities to again promote the sector within the larger agenda of economic development. For others, it has raised serious concerns about whether such investments, especially those involving large scale land acquisitions, are conducted in a manner which respects people’s rights, livelihoods and resources.

The Boom in Parallel Claims in Investment Treaty Arbitration

Investment treaty arbitrators have adopted a de facto policy of favouring parallel claims by declining to yield to contractually-agreed dispute settlement provisions. The policy is widespread among tribunals but appears out of step with judicial restraint based on principles of party autonomy, sanctity of contract, or the avoidance of parallel proceedings.

Proposed Changes to the Investment Dispute-Resolution System: A South American Perspective

The system of international investment arbitration suffers from serious flaws. In South America, more than other regions, these failings are apparent from direct experience. Perhaps because so many countries in the region have faced multiple international investment arbitrations based on multi-million dollar claims for compensations, a number of alternatives to the current system of investment dispute resolution have been proposed by governments, multilateral institutions and academics.

State Liability for Regulatory Change: How International Investment Rules are Overriding Domestic Law

With governments around the world pushing efforts to negotiate and approve mega-investment treaties, it is important to be clear on just what these investment treaties do and do not mean. This article compares U.S. domestic law and international treaty rules on state liability for regulatory changes. It shows that arbitral tribunals have interpreted investment treaty rules in a manner far more favorable to the interests of investors than the approaches adopted in U.S. courts.

Online Statements by National Investment Boards or Agencies and Their Potential Legal Effects

National investment boards or agencies operate in several countries with a view to attract foreign investment. Towards this objective, they often maintain websites highlighting the advantages of investing in their country. This article surveys some common categories of representations and promises made on the websites of national investment boards and discusses their potential legal implications.

Conoco-Phillips and Exxon-Mobil v. Venezuela: Using Investment Arbitration to Rewrite a Contract

Arbitrations by ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil against Venezuela feature some of the largest claims ever to have been brought against a state by international investors. However, a careful reading of dispute’s factual background suggests that these claims bear little connection with the deals that these oil firms actually agreed to in Venezuela.

New UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules on Transparency: Application, Content and Next Steps

In July 2013, the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) adopted a package of rules aiming to ensure transparency in investor-State arbitration, ratifying the work done by delegations to UNCITRAL—comprised of 55 Member States, additional observer States and observer organizations—over the course of nearly three years of negotiations. With the adoption of the new rules, there is now a carefully negotiated and widely approved template that can serve as a model for how to conduct investor-State arbitrations transparently.

Smart Flexibility Clauses in International Investment Agreements

A major challenge for investment treaty designers and adjudicators is to separate opportunistic behavior by host states that should be sanctioned under international law from bona fide public policy measures that should not. This article suggests that International Investment Agreements need to be both ‘smarter’ and more ‘flexible’ to better make that distinction. It draws on economic contract theory as a basic framework, and political economy theory for fine-tuning.

Enabling Risky Business: Human Rights and the Role of Officially Supported Trade Finance and Investment Guarantees

The expanded role played by Export Credit Agencies (ECAs) since the global financial crisis has not been matched with stronger rules that address the human rights-related impacts of ECA financed projects. Given narrow set of regulations that currently apply to ECAs, this brief article argues that more needs to be done to ensure that ECA financed projects do not cause harm to home states.

How to Incorporate Human Rights Obligations in Bilateral Investment Treaties?

Very few BITs refer directly to human rights issues. However, when they do, they clearly do not impose any binding obligations on foreign corporations. The following paragraphs will provide a concrete analysis of how BITs could be drafted (or redrafted) to incorporate non-investment obligations.

A Distinction Without a Difference? The Interpretation of Fair and Equitable Treatment Under Customary International Law by Investment Tribunals

Broad interpretations of the standard for fair and equitable treatment (FET) by investment tribunals have become a source of increasing controversy. In theory, linking FET to customary international law (CIL), which is formed through the “general and consistent practice of states” that they follow out of a sense of legal obligation (opinio juris), results in a standard of protection that is more deferential to the regulatory authority of governments than the “autonomous” standard. In practice, however, investment tribunals continue to construe even CIL-based FET provisions to impose broad limits on government authority by accepting, without any evidence of state practice or opinio juris, the pronouncements of previous tribunals as definitive evidence of the standard under CIL.

Counterclaims by States in Investment Arbitration

It is quite common in investment arbitration for the respondent State to include in its defense to treaty claims one or more criticisms of the investor’s underlying conduct. Yet while such arguments feature prominently in State defenses, they are rarely framed as counterclaims seeking affirmative relief. The reason may lie in an instinctive preference by States to pursue any affirmative claims in their own courts. But it may also lie in perceived limits to the jurisdiction of international tribunals to hear State counterclaims.

Two recent ICSID decisions have reached entirely different conclusions on the issue of jurisdiction over State counterclaims. This essay touches briefly on certain jurisprudential and policy factors that may explain the divergent results and frame future cases for further analysis.

The IMF’s New Transfers Policy and the Trading System

In late 2012, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) officially endorsed an “institutional view” on the management of capital flows. This short note provides an overview of the new IMF view, pinpoints how it may conflict with country obligations under trade and investment treaties, and discusses remedies for reform.

The Sixth Annual Forum of Developing Country Investment Negotiators: Understanding and Harnessing the New Models for Investment and Sustainable Development

The Sixth Annual Forum of Developing Country Investment Negotiators was held on October 29-31, 2012, in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. The forum encourages participants to develop their own critical perspectives on issues which are germane to the negotiation of international investment treaties.

The SADC MODEL BIT Template: Investment for Sustainable Development

The South African Development Community (SADC) Model Bilateral Investment Treaty Template and Commentary was completed in June 2012 by Member States of the Community. Its completion marks the end of an 18 month process of consultations and drafting among government representatives and is intended as a guide for member states in future investment treaty negotiations.

Towards a New Generation of Investment Policies: UNCTAD’s Investment Policy Framework for Sustainable Development

On 12 June 2012, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development launched its Investment Policy Framework for Sustainable Development. IPFSD comes at a time when the international investment regime is in a state of «transition» and when an increasing number of governments are reviewing their investment-related regulatory frameworks, both at the national and international levels.