Investor-State Arbitration

The increasing importance of international investment has been accompanied by the rapid development of a new field of international law that defines the obligations of host states towards foreign investors and creates procedures for resolving disputes in connection with those obligations. Investor-State Arbitration examines the international treaties that give investors a right to arbitration of claims, the most-commonly employed arbitration rules, and the most important elements of investor-state arbitration procedure - including tribunal composition, jurisdiction, evidence, award, and challenge of annulment. Expert coverage includes procedural barriers to recovery, analysis of the substantive law of investment protection, and analysis of recent investor-state arbitral jurisprudence.

Investor-State Arbitration traces the evolution and rapid development of this important field of international arbitration, resulting from the formation of the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and the more than 2,000 bilateral investment treaties, most of which have originated in the last twenty years. This development has led to far greater certainty for foreign investors in dealing with their host countries and has incentivized growth in international trade and commerce. Through arbitration, investors who have been negatively affected by the acts of a host country, such as, for example, the expropriation of property, now have a fair means of redress. Investor-State Arbitration analyzes the rights of private parties under these treaties to arbitrate disputes with countries, the arbitration rules most commonly employed in investor-state disputes, the important elements of substantive law and procedure, the enforcement of awards (including annulment proceedings under ICSID), current developments, including conflict and convergence of interests in capital-importing and capital-exporting countries, restrictions on state sovereignty, analysis of recent investor-state arbitral jurisprudence, and, finally, the emergence of an international investment jurisprudence.

Includes a full discussion of the future development of investor-state arbitration:

· The challenges of globalization

· The clash of capital-importing and capital-exporting countries

· Environmental protection and free trade

· Restrictions on state sovereignty

· The construction of an international investment

· The limits of arbitrability

· The expansion of multilateral investment protections worldwide

Christopher Dugan has been named one of Chambers Leading Lawyers in international arbitration for 2006. He is a partner in the Litigation Department of Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP, and is the chair of the Litigation Department in the firms Washington, D.C office and of the firms International Arbitration Practice. Dugan is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center.
Don Wallace, Jr. is Professor Emeritus and Adjunct Professor, and Chairman of the International Law Institute at the Georgetown University Law Center. Wallace is currently a member of the Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on Private International Law, a U.S. Delegate to UNCITRAL, and a correspondent of UNIDROIT and the vice president of the UNIDROIT Foundation in Rome.
Noah Rubins is Counsel in the international arbitration and public international law groups of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer — named the best international arbitration firm in the world by international legal journals. He specializes in investment arbitration, (particularly under the auspices of bilateral investment treaties and NAFTA) and has advised and represented sovereign and private clients in arbitrations under ICSID, ICC, AAA, Stockholm Arbitration Institute, and UNCITRAL rules. Rubins has also served as arbitrator under the UNCITRAL and ICC Rules.
Borzu Sabahi is an Adjunct Professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. He specializes in investment and commercial arbitration and has been involved in several arbitrations under the ICSID, NAFTA, and ICC rules. Sabahi is also an associate editor of the online international investment law journal, Transnational Dispute Management (TDM), and a contributing editor of the Oxford University Press online arbitration service.