Reform of Investor-State Dispute Settlement: Lessons from International Uniform Law
This article argues that significant improvements in the quality and consistency of decision-making in investor-state arbitration can be achieved without taking such drastic (and possibly unachievable) steps as creating a global appellate body or standing international investment court, or enacting a new treaty that codifies the substantive obligations of international investment law for all signatory states. The article draws on the experience of the international uniform law movement to suggest realistic and achievable steps that could nevertheless be effective.Although investor-state arbitration and uniform law are not entirely analogous, they do share some important similarities. In particular, they share the same basic goal (to create a fair, even, and predictable playing field for private relationships that cross borders) and the same basic challenge (how to deliver that degree of consistency without the factors that normally stabilize adjudication in national court systems, such as court hierarchies and a shared domestic legal culture).This article is organized around three “questions asked” with respect to investor-state dispute settlement. For each, it describes the “answers” yielded by the experience of the international uniform law movement, and proposes how the insights gained might be put into practice in investor-state arbitration. The first two questions are doctrinal in character: what degree of consistency between investment tribunals should be the goal? and what should be the role of precedent in a decentralized, non-hierarchical interpretive community? On both of these issues, the international uniform law literature provides doctrines that are normatively attractive and that can feasibly be adapted to the international investment law context. The third question is more practical: which non-binding aids to interpretation are most effective in promoting quality and consistency? A wide range of interpretive aids exist for various international uniform law instruments, providing an opportunity to identify best practices. In general, the international uniform law experience shows that substantial improvements in consistency and quality of decision-making can be realized even without the establishment of centralized administrative or appellate bodies or the enactment of new treaty regimes.
Learning and the Precision of International Investment Agreements
ABSTRACT The international regime for the promotion and protection of foreign investment consists of a multitude of close to 3,000 bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and related international investment agreements (IIAs). Yet, despite a growing body of research on IIAs, scholars in political economy have paid little attention to the legal language in the treaties themselves. In this research note, we draw on the conceptual apparatus of the legalization literature and focus on legal precision in BITs. We use a new data set created through quantitative text analysis to develop an index measuring legal precision. We then investigate the causes of the pronounced increase in precision in BITs and the considerable variation across treaties. We argue that capital-exporting countries are the primary drivers of change, and that they are motivated because they learn the implications of existing legal language from two sources: First, from the growing number of arbitration proceedings, and second, when they themselves are targeted by such claims. We provide statistical tests of our hypotheses and find ample support.
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.