On 21 March 2022, the member states of the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) approved wide-ranging amendments to the ICSID Regulations and Rules, which will come into effect on 1 July 2022. The approved amendments are the product of a rule amendment project which commenced in October 2016, pursuant to which … Read more

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (“UNCTAD“) has recently published its report (available here) on investor-state dispute settlement (“ISDS“) cases in 2020 (“Report“). The Report confirms that in 2020, investors initiated at least 68 publicly known ISDS cases pursuant to various international investment agreements (“IIAs“). This marks an increase in the number of … Read more

On June 15, 2021, the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (“ICSID“) Secretariat published its Fifth Working Paper on Proposals for Amendment of the ICSID Rules (“WP5“), featuring the proposals for amended ICSID rules on arbitration. The proposals build upon the suggested amended rules in Working Paper 4 (“WP4“), and address issues such as … Read more

On May 12, 2021, Canada published its new Model Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (the “New Model BIT”), revising the 2004 Model Agreement for the Promotion and Protection of Investments (the “2004 Model BIT”). The New Model BIT modernizes Canada’s framework and brings a few interesting innovations in the Bilateral Investment Treaty (“BIT”) world. … Read more

Since Indonesia announced its intention to terminate and replace “all of its 67 bilateral investment treaties” (BITs) in 2014, the State has actively re-negotiated several BITs. Starting with some of its largest trading partners in the region, Indonesia signed new BITs with Singapore in 2018 and Australia in 2019. On 9 March 2021, the Agreement … Read more

The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (“ICSID”) has released case statistics for 2020 (available here) showing a record number of new cases. While the figures confirm that the Covid-19 pandemic has not so far significantly affected the nature of those disputes, other changes – such as a shift to virtual hearings – are … Read more

On 30 December 2020, the European Union and China announced their Agreement in Principle for the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI). This is a landmark development for both parties in these long-running negotiations which began in 2012. On 22 January 2021, in the interest of transparency, Brussels published certain draft sections (here) of the … Read more

The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law’s (“UNCITRAL“) Working Group III (Investor-State Dispute Settlement Reform) (“WGIII”)​ has recently published two draft working papers for comment (the “Working Papers”). The Working Papers address the possible reform of investor-state dispute settlement (“ISDS“), focusing on (i) an appellate mechanism and enforcement issues and (ii) the selection and … Read more