Free trade agreements; Investment arbitration; Public interest; The European Union; Transparency; Political Science and International Relations; Law
Résumé :
[en] This article scrutinizes the investment chapters in the new EU Free Trade Agreements from a transparency perspective. The article examines the claims that the dispute settlement mechanisms in the new treaties are sufficiently participatory and more transparent than their predecessors. Procedural standards related to confidentiality of proceedings shall be analysed in the context of existing transparency safeguards in investment arbitration. In addition to procedural guarantees of transparency, the article examines relevant substantive rules affecting participatory aspects of dispute settlement. Furthermore, the article discusses forum-shopping strategies of the parties in the field of investment-related disputes, including internal forum-shopping and parallel proceedings using different procedural mechanisms. In this context, lessons from other fields such as international commercial arbitration related to transparency (in cases in which public interest is present) are highlighted. The proposal for the establishment of an integrated, multilateral court for investment cases is also invoked.
Disciplines :
Droit européen & international
Auteur, co-auteur :
Lam, Joanna; Centre of Excellence for International Courts (ICourts), Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark ; Kozminski University, Warsaw, Poland
ÜNÜVAR, Günes ; University of Luxembourg > Luxembourg Centre for European Law (LCEL) > LCEL Research
Co-auteurs externes :
yes
Langue du document :
Anglais
Titre :
Transparency and participatory aspects of investor-state dispute settlement in the EU 'new wave' trade agreements
This research is funded by the Danish National Research Foundation Grant no. DNRF105 and Carlsberg Foundation grant no. CF16-0754, and conducted under the auspices of iCourts.
Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), available at ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/in-focus/ceta/.
EU - Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), available at trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=1437.
EU - Singapore Trade and Investment Agreements, available at trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=961.
Draft Proposal Text of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (Trade in Services, Investment and E-Commerce, Chapter II-Investment), available at trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2015/september/tradoc_153807.pdf.
EU - Mexico Trade Agreement, available at trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=1831.
European Commission, 'Commission welcomes adoption of negotiating directives for a multilateral investment court', available at trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=1819.
S. Schuster, 'A Major Leak is the Latest Blow to Obama's Big Trade Deal With Europe', Time, 2 May 2016, available at time.com/4312763/ttip-trans-atlantic-trade-deal-obama/;
E. Bradner, 'How Secretive is the Trans-Pacific Partnership', CNN Politics, 12 June 2015, available at edition.cnn.com/2015/06/11/politics/ trade-deal-secrecy-tpp/index.html;
'Groups Call for End to Secrecy in Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Negotiations', Friends of the Earth, October 2011, available at foe.org/2011-10-groups-call-for-end-to-secrecy-in-trans-pacific-part/.
United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), available at www.unodc.org/unodc/en/treaties/CAC/
Azerbaijan - Croatia BIT (2007), Art. 3, available at investmentpolicy.unctad.org/international-investment-agreements/ treaty-files/229/download.
Z. Davies Boren, 'TTIP Controversy: Secret Trade Deal Can Only be Read in Secure "Reading Room" in Brussels, Independent, 14 August 2015, available at www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ttip-controversy-secret-trade-dealcan- only-be-read-secure-in-reading-room-in-brussels-10456206.html.
Letter to Karel De Gucht, Civil Society Call for Full transparency about the EU-US Trade Negotiations, available at www.foeeurope.org/sites/default/files/foee_ttip-civil-society-transparency-call190514.pdf.
European Ombudsman, 'Ombudsman Asks Council and Commission to Public More TTIP documents', Press Release no. 17/2014, 31 July 2014, available at www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/press/release.faces/en/54636/html.bookmark (emphasis added).
For instance, the Commission published a website with factsheets, infographics, and all negotiated texts for the CETA, available at trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=1720.
Cf., e.g., K. Noussia, Confidentiality in International Commercial Arbitration: A Comparative Analysis of the Position Under English, US, German and French Law (2010), 1 ff.
T. Ishikawa, 'Third Party Participation in Investment Treaty Arbitration', (2010) 59 ICLQ 373, at 373-4.
J. Jemielniak, 'Commercial Stakeholders in International Economic Dispute Resolution and the Issue of Adjudicatory Independence', (2017) 24 Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law 582.
L. R. Helfer, 'Forum Shopping for Human Rights', (1999) 148 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 285.
J. Jemielniak, L. Nielsen and H. Olsen, 'Introduction', in J. Jemielniak, L. Nielsen and H. Olsen (eds.), Establishing Judicial Authority in International Economic Law (2016), at 6.
Esso Australia Resources Ltd v. Plowman [1996] XXI Y.B.Comm. Arb. 137 (Australian High Court 1995).
OECD, 'Transparency and Third Party Participation in Investor-State Dispute Settlement Procedures', OECD Working Papers on International Investment 2005/1 (2005), at 2.
Vattenfall AB and others v. Germany (Vattenfall II), ICSID Case No. ARB/12/12, available at www.italaw.com/cases/1654.
Philip Morris Asia Limited v. Australia, UNCITRAL, PCA Case No. 2012-12, available at www.italaw.com/cases/851;
Philip Morris Brands Sarl et al. v. Uruguay, ICSID Case No. ARB/10/7, available at www.italaw.com/cases/460.
European Commission Press Release, 'Commission Proposes New Investment Court System for TTIP and other EU Trade and Investment Negotiations', IP/15/5651, 16 September 2015, available at europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-15-5651_en.htm.
European Commission, 'From Arbitration to the Investment Court System (ICS): The Evolution of CETA Rules' (2017), 15, available at www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/IDAN/2017/607251/EPRS_IDA(2017)607251_EN.pdf.
European Commission, 'Trade, Countries and Regions: Vietnam', available at ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/countries-andregions/ countries/vietnam/.
European Commission, 'Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA)', available at ec.europa.eu/trade/ policy/in-focus/ceta/.
C. Lévesque, 'The European Union Commission Proposal for the Creation of an "Investment Court System": The Q and A that the Commission Won't Be Issuing', Kluwer Arbitration Blog, 6 April 2016, available at kluwerarbitrationblog.com/2016/ 04/06/the-european-union-commission-proposal-for-the-creation-of-an-investment-court-system-the-q-and-a-thatthe- commission-wont-be-issuing/.
J. Karl, 'An appellate body for international investment disputes: How appealing is it?', 11 May 2015, Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, available at ccsi.columbia.edu/files/2013/10/No-147-Karl-FINAL.pdf;
C. Schreuer, 'Revising the System of Review for Investment Awards', 2009, available at www.univie.ac.at/intlaw/ wordpress/pdf/99_rev_invest_awards.pdf.
B. Stern, 'The Future of International Investment Law: A Balance Between the Protection of Investors and the States' Capacity to Regulate', in J. E. Alvarez and K. P. Sauvant (eds.), The Evolving International Investment Regime - Expectations, Realities, Options (2011), 174, at 186.
UNCITRAL, 'Working Group III 2017 to present: Investor-State Dispute Settlement Reform', available at www.uncitral.org/uncitral/en/commission/working_groups/ 3Investor_State.html.
J. Jemielniak, 'Pressure for Transparency and the Use of Arbitration Mechanisms in International Economic Dispute Resolution', in G. Z. Capaldo (ed.), Global Community: Yearbook of International Law and Jurisprudence 2015 (2016), at 251.
V. König, 'Präzedenzwirkung Internationaler Schiedssprüche: Dogmatisch-Empirische Analysen zur Handels-und Investitionsschiedsgerichtsbarkeit', Schriften zum Europäischen und Internationalen Privat-, Bank- und Wirtschaftsrecht 48 (2014).
G. Kaufmann-Kohler and M. Potestà, 'Can the Mauritius Convention Serve as a Model for the Reform of Investor-State Arbitration in Connection with the Introduction of a Permanent Investment tribunal or an Appeal Mechanism? Analysis and Roadmap', 2016, Geneva Center for International Dispute Settlement, available at www.uncitral.org/pdf/english/ commissionsessions/unc/unc-49/CIDS_Research_Paper_-_Can_the_Mauritius_Convention_serve_as_a_model.pdf.
European Commission, 'The European Commission Tables Proposals to Improve Transparency in Investor-to-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) based on Existing Investment Treaties', 29 January 2015, available at trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/ press/index.cfm?id=1246.
J. Jemielniak and L. Nielsen, '"Global Citizens" in International Commercial Arbitration and WTO Dispute Resolution', in J. Jemielniak et al. (eds.), Establishing Judicial Authority in International Economic Law (2016), 263.
C. N. Brower and S. Blanchard, 'What's in a Meme? The Truth about Investor-State Arbitration: Why It Need Not, and Must Not, Be Repossessed by States', (2014) 52 Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 689.
'Dispute Resolution in M&A/JV Transactions', Roundtable: Challenges and Future of Investment Arbitration, Warsaw, 28-29 May 2015.
Cf. C. N. Brower and S. W. Schill, 'Is Arbitration a Threat or a Boom to the Legitimacy of International Investment Law?', (2009) 9 Chicago Journal of International Law 471, at 498.
S. Lester, 'Do We Need a TPP Secretariat?', International Economic Law and Policy Blog, 12 November 2014, available at worldtradelaw.typepad.com/ielpblog/2014/11/do-we-need-a-tpp-secretariat.html.
A. C. Brown 'Presumption Meets Reality: An Exploration of the Confidentiality Obligation in International Commercial Arbitration', (2001) 16 American University International Law Review 969, at 1025.
Cf. P. Neill, 'Confidentiality in Arbitration', (1996) 12 Arb. Int'l 287;
C. Knahr and A. Reinisch, 'Transparency versus Confidentiality in International Investment Arbitration - The Biwater Gauff Compromise', (2007) 6 Law & Practice of International Courts & Tribunals 97
J. F. Poudret and S. Besson, Comparative Law of International Arbitration (2007), 316.
F. P. Feliciano, '"Ordre Public" Dimensions of Confidentiality and Transparency in International Arbitration: Examining Confidentiality in the Light of Governance Requirements in International Investment and Trade Arbitration', in J. Nakagawa (ed.), Transparency in International Trade and Investment Dispute Settlement (2013), 15, at 29.
E. De Brabandere, 'NGOs and the "Public Interest": The Legality and Rationale of Amicus Curiae Interventions in International Economic and Investment Disputes', (2011) 12 Chicago Journal of International Law 85, at 86.
Methanex v. United States of America, Ad Hoc, Decision of the Tribunal on Petitions from Third Persons to Intervene as 'Amici Curiae' (15 January 2001), para. 30.
Suez, Sociedad General de Aguas de Barcelona SA and Vivendi Universal SA v. Argentine Republic, ICSID Case No ARB/ 03/19, Order in Response to a Petition for Participation as Amicus Curiae (19 May 2005).
Biwater Gauff (Tanzania) Ltd. v. United Republic of Tanzania, ICSID Case No ARB/05/22, Procedural Order No. 3 (29 September 2006), accessed 24 January 2017.
Cf. also M. Dimsey, 'Article 4. Submission by a Third Person', in D. Euler et al. (eds.), Transparency in International Investment Arbitration: A Guide to the UNCITRAL Rules on Transparency in Treaty-Based Investor-State Arbitration (2015), 128, at 149-50.
M. Gehring and D. Euler, 'Public Interest in Investment Arbitration', in D. Euler et al. (eds.), Transparency in International Investment Arbitration: A Guide to the UNCITRAL Rules on Transparency in Treaty-Based Investor-State Arbitration (2015), 7, at 27.
S. Schill, 'The Mauritius Convention on Transparency: A Model for Investment Law Reform?', EJIL: Talk!, 8 April 2015, available at www.ejiltalk.org/the-mauritius-convention-on-transparency-a-model-for-investment-law-reform/.
As of July 2018. Up-to-date status available at www.uncitral.org/uncitral/en/uncitral_texts/arbitration/2014Transparency_ Convention_status.html.
ICSID, 'Proposals for Amendment of the ICSID Rules - A Working Paper', (Three Volumes, 3 August 2018), available at icsid.worldbank.org/en/Documents/Amendments_Vol_3_Schedule%208.pdf ('Working Paper').
European Commission Communication, 'Towards a comprehensive European international investment policy', 7 July 2010, available at www.eesc.europa.eu/en/our-work/opinions-information-reports/opinions/towards-comprehensive-europeaninternational- investment-policy.
J. Alvarez and K. Khamsi, 'The Argentine Crisis and Foreign Investors - A Glimpse into the Heart of the Investment Regime', in K. P. Sauvant (ed.), The Yearbook on International Investment Law and Policy 2008/2009 (2009), 379.
W. W. Park, 'Private Disputes and the Public Good: Explaining Arbitration Law', (2005) 20 American University International Law Review 903, at 906.