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8 - A Future Without (Treaty-Based) ISDS: Costs and Benefits

from Part II - Current Challenges in International Investment Dispute Settlement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2021

By
Jonathan Bonnitcha ,
Lauge Poulsen  and
Jason Yackee
Edited by
Manfred Elsig ,
Rodrigo Polanco  and
Peter van den Bossche
Manfred Elsig
Affiliation:
Universität Bern, Switzerland
Rodrigo Polanco
Affiliation:
Universität Bern, Switzerland
Peter van den Bossche
Affiliation:
Universität Bern, Switzerland
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Summary

More than 1,000 investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS) claims have been brought to date based on investment treaties, most of them in recent years. Many of the claims have challenged sensitive areas of government regulation, and some have resulted in multi-billion-dollar awards. ISDS has become a posterchild for anti-globalization groups and is increasingly considered problematic by a range of developing country governments. Yet, criticism of ISDS is not always associated with opposition to economic globalization, multinational firms, or to a rules-based international order. The CATO Institute, a prominent libertarian think-tank, is critical of what it sees as a positive discrimination in favour of foreign investors and the German Association of Judges, a stalwart defender of the rule of law, came out against the mechanism in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Right or wrong, ISDS has become one of the most controversial issues in global economic governance.

Type
Chapter
Information
International Economic Dispute Settlement
Demise or Transformation?
 , pp. 191 - 219
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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