Investor-State Arbitration Tribunals

Dr Federico Ortino is Reader in International Economic Law at King’s College London. I will focus my (two) brief remarks on Part II of Martins Paparinskis’ excellent monograph. First, the main argument in Part II (and one of the central themes of the entire work) is that “treaty rules on fair and equitable treatment refer to the customary minimum standard” (p 159) as a matter of Art 31(1) of the VCLT. Interestingly, before explaining the claim in positive terms (pp 160-166), Chapter 5 elaborates at length the claim in negative terms (pp 111-153): “no argument limited to treaty law can explain the existing and accepted practice [of elaborating the concept of fair and equitable treatment on a case-by-case basis]” (p 153). In short, investment tribunals’ reliance on previous investment tribunal decisions for purposes of interpreting pari materia treaty rules (like fair and equitable treatment clauses) cannot be justified within the boundaries of the customary rules of treaty interpretation (Art 31-32 VCLT), unless through the reference to customary…