ISDS Case Map
UNCITRAL
United Nations Commission on International Trade Law
The traditional mechanism of investment arbitration between the investor and the host State has been under attack for some time now from a range of actors and for a variety of reasons.
The New York Convention is regarded as the most influential treaty in the area of international trade and international commercial arbitration.
Multinational companies will increasingly file massive cases against host countries when climate change policies affect their profits, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said.
Caribbean States and investors are not only participating, but being harmed by the ills and abuses of the current system of ISDS.
The 37th session in New York was devoted to addressing and identifying some additional concerns and creating a workplan for carrying out phase three of the mandate—developing possible ISDS reform options.
If the investment regime is to be made supportive of development and overcome its legitimacy crisis confronting, something more is required than procedural reforms to ISDS.
A permanent Multilateral Investment Court pushed by the European Union could make ISDS worse by scaling it up.
ISDS lawyers appear to hold administrative positions within the working group and are represented in large numbers in the advisory bodies that have been established for the working group.
Advocates of ISDS (industrialised countries and lawyers from the ‘arbitration industry’) dominate the running of the Working Group and its advisory bodies. Civil society is underrepresented.
USMCA bears many resemblances to NAFTA, which has been cited as a driver of low-wage corporate outsourcing.
