Awards of international investment arbitration tribunals on the merits: an overview of the most remarkable cases of 2014–2015

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As a rule, international investment arbitration tribunals consider the claims of foreign investors against states hosting such investments. The course and the outcome of such claims are quite difficult to predict since there is no single set of international law rules (either substantive or procedural), nor is there a single dispute resolution body. However, despite this lack of predictability, one may detect certain trends and patterns. This is necessary in order to enable foreign investors and host states to plan their activities, and is also useful in case a dispute arises. This overview gives examples of how international investment tribunals apply the provisions of international treaties that deal with such questions as a host state’s violation of its duty to provide foreign investors with the national treatment, a minimum standard of treatment, a fair and equitable treatment, the state’s duties arising out of an umbrella clause, and selected aspects of expropriation. Although in 36.4% of known cases international arbitration tribunals rendered awards in favor of states (against 26.7% of disputes being decided in favor of foreign investors), as a rule those awards that were favorable to states were rendered by international investment tribunals at the jurisdictional stage. However, if it comes to the examination of a dispute on its merits, arbitration tribunals usually decide in favor of claimants, i.e. foreign investors. For Russia, these statistical data are of interest for two reasons. First, Russia combines two roles: that of a state that hosts foreign investments and that of a state of origin of foreign investments. Due to this dual role, Russia as a defendant and Russian investors as claimants are heavily involved in investor-state dispute resolutions at the international scale. Second, many Russian outbound investments are state-owned or state-controlled. This is why it is important for Russia to keep pace with the newest trends in investor-state dispute resolutions.

About the author: Ilia Rachkov – Candidate of Sciences (Ph.D.) in Law, Associate Professor, Moscow State Institute (University) of International Relations, Moscow, Russia.

Citation: Rachkov I. (2017) Resheniya mezhdunarodnykh investitsionnykh arbit­razhey po sushchestvu sporov: obzor naibolee primechatel’nykh del za 2014–2015 gody [Awards of international investment arbitration tribunals on the merits: an overview of the most remarkable cases of 2014–2015] // Mezhdunarodnoe pravosudie, no.4, pp.67–88. (In Russian).

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