• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.33-52
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• 2014

Although climate change is a global scale question, some concerns have been raised that principles of investment arbitration may not adequately address the domestic implementation of climate change measures. A recent ICSID investment arbitration of Vattenfall v. Germany with regard to the investor's alleged damages from the phase-out of nuclear plants is a salient climate change case. The 2005 Kyoto Protocol was made to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and it provides a number of flexible mechanisms such as Joint Implementation (JI) and Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Implementation of the Kyoto Protocol allows dispute settlement through investor-state arbitration. Any initiation of stricter emission standards can violate the prohibition on expropriations in investment agreements, regardless of the measures created to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The effect-based expropriation doctrine can charge changes to existing emission standards as interference with the use of property that goes against the legitimate expectation of a foreign investor. In regulatory chill, threat of investor claims against the host state may preclude the strengthening of climate change measures. Stabilization clauses also have a freezing effect on the hosting state's regulation and a new law applicable to the investment. In the fair and equitable standard, basic expectations of investors when entering into earlier carbon-intensive operations can be affected by a regulation seeking to change into a low-carbon approach. As seen in the Methanex tribunal, a non-discriminatory and public purpose of environmental protection measures should be considered as non-expropriation in the arbitral tribunal unless its decision would intentionally impede a foreign investor's investment.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.525-541
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• 2012

This study aims to investigate the possibility of Investor-State Dispute under Korea US FTA in relation to Korean environmental impact assessment scheme. The study analyzes the Investor-State Dispute case between Bilcon of Delaware and the government of Canada. The case study shows that Bilcon challenged Canada with violations of NAFTA 1102, 1103 and 1105, arguing that Canada treated Bilcon in an arbitrary and discriminatory manner. The study analyzes two different scenarios that Korea could face with arbitration for alleged breach of its obligations under the Korea US FTA in relation to EIA scheme. From analyzing the case study in relation to two different scenarios, the study finds that problems previously identified and associated with EIA scheme in Korea could directly or indirectly cause Investor-State Dispute Settlement process between Korea and American investors. The study concludes that the risk of violating Korea US FTA related with Korean EIA could be reduced by creating Korean EIA scheme in a transparent and unarbitrary manner which guarantees fair public participation and elaborating the concrete meaning of sustainable development in EIA law.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.95-107
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• 2019

The ICSID arbitral tribunal shall determine the suitability of investors in accordance with the Article 25 of the ICSID convention and the investment or investor's provisions under the BIT. The eligibility of investors has an important role in establishing jurisdiction under international investment disputes. Therefore, this study draws implications on issues related to investor qualification, focusing on ICSID arbitration. The investor's nationality shall be taken into consideration in determining whether the investor is eligible. The criteria for determining the nationality of a corporate investor include the place of incorporation, main business location, and substantial ownership or control. The criterion of the place of incorporation that is used in a number of BIT have the problem of protecting investors from third countries not involved in the BIT. So, in recent years it is stipulated that the actual economic activity or the main business location as well as the place of incorporation criteria. And this problem is complemented by the denial of benefit clause. When determining whether a local corporation is controlled by foreigner in the host state it considers the shareholding rate, voting rights, and the exercise of managerial rights. There is a tendency to recognize shareholder's right to petition. Thus the same damage should not cause problems such as duplicate repayment or double reimbursement between the shareholders and the company. Unexpected problems can arise if the scope of investments and investors is broadly specified in the BIT. Therefore, it is necessary to clarify the scope of investment to be protected.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.127-147
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• 2013

Korea is, after China, the Asian country with the largest number of concluded investment treaties. One of the protections that Korean investment treaties frequently afford to foreign investors and their investment is the so-called "umbrella clause," which requires the host state of the investment to observe the commitments that it has undertaken toward the foreign investor or its investment. This is a potentially very powerful protection. Umbrella clauses, however, have proven to be amongst the most controversial provisions in investment treaties, giving rise to diverging interpretations by tribunals and commentators that are still not reconciled today.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.3-18
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• 2017

International legal reviews on ISD, a procedure for resolving disputes under the Korea-US FTA, are examined from the perspective of law. If the ISD system does not exist, even if the investor suffers damage due to the illegal act of the host country, he or she must file a lawsuit through the court of the host country, which is unreasonable from the investor's point of view and makes it difficult to guarantee fairness and transparency. Some of the Koreans pointed out that there are some problems with the KORUS FTA dispute settlement regulations, and that the United States federal courts are taking a friendly attitude to the decisions made by the US Customs in determining the dispute by the KORUS FTA Agreement and the US Customs Act. In cases where the State does not violate international law but results in harmful consequences, the responsibility of one country is borne by the treaty. Foreign investment always comes with many challenges and risks. Therefore, the ISD system is a fair and universal arbitration system, which is considered to be a necessary system even for protecting the Korean companies investing abroad. In the investment treaty, compensation for the nationalization of foreign property and reimbursement under the laws of the host country were dissatisfied with foreign investors. In particular, some Koreans have pointed out that there are some problems in the KORUS FTA dispute resolution regulations and there is a need for further discussion and research. Based on the experiences and wisdoms gained in the course of Korea-US FTA negotiations, the dispute arbitration mechanism is urgently needed to reduce the possibility of disputes and to make amicable directions.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.141-158
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• 2007

The purpose of this paper is to examine the validity or effectiveness of the Arbitration Clause such as Model Clause I, and to confirm how other issues such as arbitrable "investment", appointment of arbitrators and law governing the agreement be reflected in the agreement. However, the parties should be sure that the arbitration clause is valid if they have checked whether, for their particular situation, the ICSID Centre has jurisdiction. For the validity of the Arbitration Clause, first the host country and the country which the investor belong to must be "contracting states" to the ICSID Convention. Second, the specific consent to arbitrate must be expressed in writing in the investment contract or in a national investment law or in an investment protection treaty. The issue of "nationality" of an other contracting state is determined by the place of incorporation or the location of the head office. In case the parties have doubts about a valid consent to arbitrate, Art. 41 of the ICSID Convention provides, regarding ICSID jurisdiction, that the tribunal shall be the judge of its own competence. It follows that ICSID Arbitration has an autonomous and exclusive character. As a consequence, domestic courts may not interfere with the question of ICSID's jurisdiction, which is called as "rule of abstention".

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.77-100
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• 2019

Third-party funding in international and domestic disputes is a fast-growing trend and it is increasingly used by large, solvent companies that simply wish to share risk in their finance. On January 10, 2017, the Civil Law Amendment Bill was passed in Singapore and on June 2017 an "Arbitration and Mediation Legislation (Third Party Funding) Bill" in Hong-Kong had a third-party funding to finance the international arbitration and other dispute resolutions expressly approved. This arbitral tribunal's expanding discretion over critical interim measure of security cost was in issue. In Essar v. Norscot (2016), the arbitrator found that the additional third-party funding costs were recoverable as "other costs of the parties." In here, the decision showed the issue of a tribunal's power over cost measures could spread out to be reviewed and broadened through the legislative process. A recent investor-state arbitration case of ICSID, RSM Production Corporation v. Saint Lucia, covered the express awarding of security for costs where a claimant was funded by a third-party funder. It seems inevitable that the volume of third-party funding industry will grow more as time goes on. The next step would be to formulate guidelines on how to determine criteria against which an application for security for costs is measured.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.3-23
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• 2015

The Chevron saga including Chevron/TexPet v. Ecuador, PCA Case No. 34877(hereinafter referred to as "Chevron I") and Chevron/TexPet v. Ecuador, PCA Case No. 2009-23(hereinafter referred to as "Chevron II") started out of domestic litigations between TexPet and Ecuador in the early 1990s. In Chevron I, the Tribunal decided that Article 2(7) of the U.S.-Ecuador BIT on effective means of provision was breached because of undue delays in the seven legal proceedings TexPet had brought against Ecuador in respect to contractual obligations. In Chevron II, it was contended that through the actions and inactions of the judiciary and the executive, Ecuador breached her several obligations under the BIT. Ecuador objected to the jurisdiction of the Tribunal because TexPet's investment was terminated in 1992, and because Chevron is not a party to the 1995 Settlement Agreement and 1998 Final Release. In its Interim Award on Jurisdiction and Admissibility, the Tribunal applied a prima facie standard to the facts alleged by the Claimants but denied by the Respondent, and decided that questions in respect of the Respondent's jurisdictional objections should be joined to the merits under Article 21(4) of the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules. In the merits phase of Chevron II, the Tribunal divided the merits of the Parties' dispute into two parts, entitled "Track 1" and "Track 2". In its Partial Award on Track 1, the Tribunal decided that Chevron is a "Releasee" under the 1995 Settlement Agreement. In a decision on "Track 1B", the Tribunal decided that the Lago Agrio complaint cannot be read as pleading "exclusively" or "only" diffuse claims, and that, to this extent, the Claimants' reliance on the 1995 Settlement Agreement as a complete bar to the Lago Agrio complaint must fail, as a matter of Ecuadorian law. The Tribunal maintained the position that the Parties' disputes on both merit and jurisdiction should be reserved for Track 2. It remains to be seen how the Tribunal addresses the Claimants' allegations of multiple denials of justice under international law against the judgments of the Respondent's Courts, together with the Respondent's jurisdictional objections in Track 2 of the arbitration.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.27-44
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• 2024

The lack of consistency and predictability of arbitral awards in the Investor-State Dispute Settlement ("ISDS") mechanism has long been a subject of criticism. In international investment disputes, arbitral tribunals have frequently come up with different interpretations and results on similar investment agreement provisions. The arbitral tribunal's inconsistent decisions raised concerns not only among the parties to the investment dispute but also amongthe arbitral tribunals in other cases, which ultimately led to legal inconsistencies in international investment law. Arbitration awards may have some degree of disagreement in interpretation. However, the systemic inconsistencies that pervade ISDS risk undermining the purpose of the investment agreement system, which is to provide a predictable and stable framework to protect andpromote foreign investment while maintaining a balance with host state regulations. Therefore, this study proposes a plan to resolve this discrepancy and review standards for practical application. Reform of the ISDS mechanism could be a viable option to reduce, to some extent, the inconsistencies in interpretation, if not completely eliminate them. Reforms such as establishingguidelines, promoting cooperation between arbitral tribunals, and codifying the norms of the agreement can provide a means of reducing interpretive inconsistencies and strengthening the legitimacy of the ISDS mechanism. Reforming the ISDS mechanism will require all stakeholders to carefully consider the issues and the scope, nature, and feasibility of eachpotential reform.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.187-213
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• 2012

The purpose of this article is to examine Fair and Equitable Treatment in International Investment Agreements. Most BITs and other investment treaties provide for FET of foreign investments. Today, this concept is the most frequently invoked standard in investment disputes. It is also the standard with the highest practical relevance: a majority of successful claims pursued in international arbitration are based on a violation of the FET standard. The concept of FET is not new but has appeared in international documents for some time. Some of these documents were nonbinding others entered into force as multilateral or bilateral treaties. Considerable debate has surrounded the question of whether the FET standard merely reflects the internationalminimum standard, as contained in customary international law, or offers an autonomous standard that is additional to general international law. As a matter of textual interpretation, it seems implausible that a treaty would refer to a well-known concept like the "minimum standard of treatment in customary international law" by using the expression "fair and equitable treatment." Broad definitions or descriptions are not the only way to gauge the meaning of an elusive concept such as FET. Another method is to identify typical factual situations to which this principle has been applied. An examination of the practice of tribunals demonstrates that several principles can be identified that are embraced by the standard of fair and equitable treatment. Some of the cases discussed clearly speak to the central roles of transparency, stability, and the investor's legitimate expectations in the current understanding of the FET standard. Other contexts in which the standard has been applied concern compliance with contractual obligations, procedural propriety and due process, action in good faith, and freedom from coercion and harassment. In short, meeting the investor's central legitimate concern of legal consistency, stability, and predictability remains a major, but not the only, ingredient of an investment-friendly climate in which the host state in turn can reasonably expect to attract foreign investment.