investor-state disputes | ISDS


Australia-Hong Kong investment ruling released in plain packaging case
The tribunal considered that the main and determinative reason for the 2011 restructuring was in order for the tobacco giant to bring a legal claim under the BIT Treaty, using a Hong Kong-based entity.
Member states’ proposal for more investor protection legally flawed
The proposal would fundamentally undermine the EU’s internal market provisions and the role of the courts of the Member States and the European Court of Justice in safeguarding their operation.
Signing away sovereignty
The Philippines has a web of investment treaties which severely constrain the government's ability to regulate or close polluting mines, a legal straitjacket that will become even tighter if the EU–Philippines Free Trade Agreement and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) proceed
EU and Philippines kick off trade talks today
Philippine trade negotiators meet their DG Trade counterparts for a first round of trade talks, five months after they were announced, but nobody expects a cakewalk.
ISDS in the revised CETA: positive steps, but is it a “gold standard”?
Canada and the European Union released a revised Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) in February 2016. The revisions focus on the controversial and deeply flawed process of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS).
6th global to local webinar on May 24th
The Global to Local Webinar Series addresses key issues in the global to local debate.
Shameless attempt to quietly institutionalise ISDS throughout Europe
A new leak reveals that 5 EU member states are proposing to introduce investor-to-state dispute settlement for all cross-border investments within the EU.
Big Tobacco abuses investor-state dispute settlement: law expert
“Despite the losses and defeats, tobacco companies will keep coming back for more. They will fight on regardless in order to delay and disrupt the rollout of the World Health Organization’s best-practice tobacco control measures,”
ICSID tribunal orders Zimbabwe to return expropriated farms
In an award issued July 28, 2015 but only published February 2016, a tribunal at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) ordered Zimbabwe to return farms it seized without compensation in 2005.
The need for a Southern Observatory on transnational investment
The objective of the Observatory is to become a forum for the objective settlement of investment disputes with transnational corporations.