International Arbitration
DTL Blog

Investor-State Dispute Settlement under Investment Treaties and Free Trade Agreements: ad hoc Arbitration or Investment Court System?

01/02/17 17:55
ad hoc investor-State arbitration with a permanent, multilateral investment court.
Investor-State dispute settlement (“ISDS”) has come a long way from its foundations in the mid-Eighteenth Century, when the idea of State responsibility for injury to aliens and their property began to emerge. This once esoteric area of international practice is now undergoing a period of re-evaluation, for the first time under intense public scrutiny. A particular focus is on the form that ISDS should take in future trade and investment treaties, with the European Commission and Canadian Government advocating the replacement of the prevailing system of 
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Hong Kong, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Foreign Investment Protection

01/08/16 18:39
The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (“TPP”), which was signed in November 2015 by the United States, Canada, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Japan, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and Vietnam, has increased public awareness of the technocratic and often obscure world of international trade and investment deals.
But whereas the TPP’s political and strategic implications in Asia and the Pacific are being widely debated in the newspapers, less consideration has been given to how the TPP would (if and when it comes into force) become part of a growing network of investment protection treaties in the region. Read More…

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Enforcing International Arbitration Agreements in Federal Courts: Rethinking the Court's Remedial Powers

10/05/06 15:29
The area of remedies in private international law is largely unexplored, but provide the very means by which the courts can advance private international law aims such as controlling international litigation and enforcing forum selection. The contractual nature of arbitration agreements and the policy in favor of arbitration make this a good starting point from which a wider remedial framework can be developed.  In practice, the U.S. federal courts invariably enforce arbitration agreements with the statutory remedies in the Federal Arbitration Act. Yet, there is no reason why this should be. Where the statutory remedy is deficient or inappropriate, the courts may appeal to their wider inherent remedial powers to fashion suitable relief. The domestic law of remedies suggests that the courts may use specific and (antisuit) injunctive relief to enforce the parties' right to the arbitral forum, or to award ordinary contractual damages to vindicate what is a straightforward breach of contract. Private international law remedies such as stays of proceedings and nonrecognition of judgments obtained in breach of arbitration agreements are other remedial alternatives that can be used to enforce such agreements. All the same, development of each of these remedies must be done within the context of an overarching remedial scheme - akin to that which exists in domestic law. The domestic law of remedies offers an interlocking set of remedial responses to vindicate wrongs. To effectively control international litigation and improper attempts at forum shopping, the courts must endeavor to develop a similar remedial framework in the private international law context, in order that they may be able to render the most appropriate remedial relief to enforce agreements to arbitrate and advance the policy in favor of arbitration.
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