Resources and Events

Resources

Investment Treaties and Why They Matter to Sustainable Development: Questions and Answers
International Institute for Sustainable Development, December 2011
This handbook provides an accessible introduction to investment treaties and their relevance to sustainable development. The handbook provides a brief history of investment treaties, before delving into a discussion of the contents of these treaties and their implications. The handbook feature commentary on fair and equitable treatment, expropriation, national treatment, most favoured nation treatment, performance requirements, free transfer of capital, umbrella clauses, and dispute settlement. It concludes with a discussion of how the problems associated with investment treaties can be addressed. Available at:

Improving International Investment Agreements
Routledge Research in International Economic Law, Forthcoming: March 2012
This book discusses some of the criticisms directed at international investment law and offers potential solutions. The book is prepared by a group of scholars and practitioners from Canada and Europe. It takes a multidisciplinary approach to the subject, with analysis from the legal, political and economic perspectives. The first part of the book traces the evolution in investment treaty-making and provides an evaluation from a political economy and economics perspective. The other three parts are organised around the concepts of efficiency, legitimacy and sustainability. Each contributor analyzes one or more issues of treaty negotiation, substance or dispute resolution, with the ultimate aim of improving investment treaty-making in these respects. More information is available at: http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415671972/

Mining for Profits in International Tribunals
Institute for Policy Studies, November 2011
This report takes a critical look at investor-state arbitration and describes recent trends in disputes related to oil, mining, and gas. The report finds that at the most frequently used tribunal, the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), 43 of 137 pending investor-state cases are related to oil, mining, or gas. By contrast, one year ago there were only 32 such cases and 10 years ago there were only 3. The report also finds that Latin American governments receive a relatively large share of the claims. Latin American governments make up about 10 percent of the 157 ICSID member governments, yet they are the targets of 68 (50 percent) of all ICSID cases and 25 (nearly two-thirds) of the 43 current extractive industries cases. Available at: http://www.ipsdc.org/files/3936/Mining_for_Profits_November_2011_FINAL-2.pdf

Yearbook on International Investment Law and Policy 2010-2011
Oxford University Press, 2011
The Investment Yearbook is an annual, peer-reviewed publication now in its third edition. The present volume includes a Symposium on the new EU competence over investment and chapters addressing such central issues as essential security clauses, climate change law, land acquisitions, State- controlled entities, and third-party funding, while examining the importance and relevance of dispute settlement within the current regime. It concludes with a debate on quantitative methods in research in international investment law. More information is available at: http://www.vcc.columbia.edu/yearbook

Non-Precluded Measures in Indian International Investment Agreements and India’s Regulatory Power as a Host Nation
Prabhash Ranjan, Asian Journal of International Law, 30 November 2011
This article provides the first-ever detailed analysis of Non-Precluded Measures (NPM) provisions in India’s investment treaties from the perspective of India’s regulatory power as a host nation. It critically analyses NPM provisions in fifty-seven Indian investment treaties by studying the divergence in their formulation and argues that the present formulation of NPM provisions in Indian investment treaties is inadequate for the exercise of regulatory power by India for all its policy needs. Hence, in the light of the growing pros and cons of investor treaty arbitration, the article concludes that NPM provisions in Indian investment treaties should be reformulated in a manner that balances investment protection with India’s regulatory power to pursue non-investment-related policy objectives. Available at: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8444515&fulltextType=RA&fileId=S2044251311000129

Events

January

19
Freezing Those Costs: A Swedish-Romanian Dialogue on Controlling Arbitration Costs, The Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (SCC) and the SALC Advokatbyra, Bucharest, Romania, http://www.sccinstitute.se/?id=42012

30 January – 3 February
UNCITRAL Working Group II, Arbitration and Conciliation, Preparation of a legal standard on transparency in treaty-based investor-State arbitration, Vienna, Austria, http://www.uncitral.org/uncitral/en/commission/working_groups/2Arbitration.html

March

28-31
ASIL 106th Annual Meeting – Confronting Complexity, American Society of International Law, Washington, D.C., United States, http://www.asil.org/annual-meeting.cfm

April

21-26
Thirteenth session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD XIII), Doha, Qatar, http://www.unctad.org/Templates/meeting.asp?intItemID=1942&lang=1&m=21643

June

10-13
21st International Council for Commercial Arbitration Congress (ICCA), Singapore, http://www.iccasingapore2012.org/site/