Legitimacy in WTO law and investment arbitration: the role of the contracting parties
International trade and investment law is characterized by two distinct models: the constitutional law model as found in the World Trade Organization (WTO), 1 where the remedy is “the bringing into conformity of the measure”, and the tort law model, where international law standards establish the threshold for delictive behavior, to be remedied by damages. 2 Both models represent rules-based approaches to the peaceful settlement of disputes, replacing power diplomacy. They may be considered as the finest examples of the efficient application of rules of international law. Both subsystems of international law are creations of treaties, which serve to control unreasonable political actors and positively affect regulatory governance even on a domestic level. The development of the former GATT and present WTO law is driven and controlled by the contracting parties, through the adoption of panel reports based on rather precise behavioral rules, which leads to an “authentic” interpretation of such rules by its members. 3 In contrast, standards contained in international investment agreements (IIAs) are the result of a “dilatory formula compromise”, i.e., a formal compromise without agreement on its precise content, due to historical reasons. They have been developed through interpretation by arbitral tribunals and scholarly writings in order to achieve a sufficient level of precision to provide for legal certainty and predictability. However, this occurs without further involvement of the contracting parties, which raises legitimacy issues. 4
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, investor-state dispute settlement and China
This Perspective argues that since China has been a strong proponent of investment arbitration for more than a decade, Beijing is likely to favor the mechanism in a future EU-China deal – irrespective of whether it is included in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership agreement.
The Area of Freedom, Security and Justice ten years on: Successes and future challenges under the Stockholm Programme. CEPS Paperbacks. June 2010
This book celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ) by bringing together the views of key practitioners and policy-makers who have played an outstanding role in thinking about and shaping EU policies on freedom, security and justice. 
 
Ten years ago, the member states transferred competences to the EU for law and policy-making in the fields of immigration, asylum and border controls, and began the transfer process for criminal justice and policing. This decade of European cooperation on AFSJ policies has experienced very dynamic convergence, the enactment of a large body of European law and the setting-up of numerous EU agencies working in these domains. Such dynamism in policy-making has not been without challenges and vulnerabilities, however. As this collective volume shows, the main dilemmas that lie ahead relate to an effective (while more plural) institutional framework under the Treaty of Lisbon, stronger judicial scrutiny through a greater role for national courts and the Court of Justice in Luxembourg, better mechanisms for evaluating and monitoring the implementation of EU AFSJ law and a more solid fundamental rights strategy. The contributions in this volume address the progress achieved so far in these policy areas, identify the challenges for future European cooperation in the AFSJ and put forward possible paths for making more progress in the next generation of the EU’s AFSJ.