A bilateral investment treaty (BIT) is an agreement establishing the terms and conditions for private investment by nationals and companies of one state in another state. This type of investment is called foreign direct investment (FDI). BITs are established through trade pacts. A nineteenth-century forerunner of the BIT is the friendship, commerce, and navigation treaty (FCN).
The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) is an international arbitration institution established in 1966 for legal dispute resolution and conciliation between international investors. The ICSID is part of and funded by the World Bank Group, headquartered in Washington, D.C., in the United States. It is an autonomous, multilateral specialized institution to encourage international flow of investment and mitigate non-commercial risks by a treaty drafted by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development's executive directors and signed by member countries. As of May 2016, 153 contracting member states agreed to enforce and uphold arbitral awards in accordance with the ICSID Convention.
International arbitration is arbitration between companies or individuals in different states, usually by including a provision for future disputes in a contract.
Ex aequo et bono is a Latin phrase that is used as a legal term of art. In the context of arbitration, it refers to the power of arbitrators to dispense with consideration of the law but consider solely what they consider to be fair and equitable in the case at hand.
Arbitration, a form of alternative dispute resolution (ADR), is a way to resolve disputes outside the courts. The dispute will be decided by one or more persons, which renders the "arbitration award". An arbitration award is legally binding on both sides and enforceable in the courts.
An arbitral tribunal is a panel of one or more adjudicators which is convened and sits to resolve a dispute by way of arbitration. The tribunal may consist of a sole arbitrator, or there may be two or more arbitrators, which might include either a chairman or an umpire. Members selected to serve on the tribunal are typically professionals with expertise in law and mediation, although some scholars have suggested that the ideal composition of an arbitral tribunal should include at least one economist, particularly in cases that involve questions of asset or damages valuation.
Emmanuel Gaillard is a prominent practicing attorney, a leading authority on international commercial arbitration, and a law professor. He founded and heads the international arbitration practice of the international law firm Shearman & Sterling and frequently acts as an arbitrator in international commercial or investment disputes.
Thomas W. Wälde, former United Nations (UN) Inter-regional Adviser on Petroleum and Mineral Legislation, was Professor & Jean-Monnet Chair at the Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy (CEPMLP), Dundee.
The Arbitration Roundtable of Toronto is made up of several litigators, academics, arbitrators, and mediators from the Greater Toronto Area. The group promotes arbitration as an alternative method of conflict resolution over litigation, especially in commercial suits. Members include commercial litigators from Toronto law firms including some of the Seven Sisters of Bay Street. Each member has experience and interest in promoting commercial Arbitration. The group dedicates its time to encouraging this form of Dispute resolution through seminars, papers, and talks.
William W. Park is Professor of Law at Boston University School of Law. His practice and teaching focus on international financial and commercial transactions. He has served as Arbitrator on the Claims Resolution Tribunal for Dormant Accounts in Switzerland and the Appeals Tribunal of the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims, and currently sits on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Chapter 14 Financial Services Roster.
Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) or investment court system (ICS) is a system through which investors can sue nation states for alleged discriminatory practices. ISDS is an instrument of public international law and provisions are contained in a number of bilateral investment treaties, in certain international trade treaties, such as NAFTA, and the proposed TPP and CETA agreements. ISDS is also found in international investment agreements, such as the Energy Charter Treaty. If an investor from one country invests in another country, both of which have agreed to ISDS, and the host state violates the rights granted to the investor under the treaty, then that investor may bring the matter before an arbitral tribunal.
Albert Jan van den Berg is a founding partner of Hanotiau & van den Berg in Brussels, a Emeritus Professor of Law at the Erasmus University, Rotterdam, a visiting Professor at Georgetown University Law Center, Washington DC and at the University of Tsinghua School of Law, Beijing and a member of the Advisory Board and Faculty of the Geneva Master of Laws in International Dispute Settlement (MIDS), Geneva.
Gary B. Born is an international lawyer and academic. He is chair of the International Arbitration and International Litigation practices at the international law firm, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, and the author of a number of commentaries, casebooks and other works on international arbitration and litigation.
The CME v. Czech Republic and Lauder v. Czech Republic were parallel cases decided by two different arbitral tribunals in 2001. The difference in the two cases' outcomes is a prime example of conflicting decisions in international arbitration and is the subject of many treatises, with some authors going as far as calling it "the ultimate fiasco in investment arbitration".
Olasupo Shasore, SAN is a legal practitioner.He is a partner in the law firm of ALP, a leading commercial law firm in Nigeria. He was Attorney General & Commissioner for Justice, Lagos State from 2007 – 2011. Shasore is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. He is the immediate past chair, Arbitration & Dispute Resolution Committee of the Section on Business Law of the Nigerian Bar Association.
Siegfried Wiessner is a Professor of Law and the Founder and Director of St. Thomas University's Graduate Program in Intercultural Human Rights in Miami, Florida. He holds a law degree (1977) as well as a Dr. iur. (1989) from the University of Tübingen, Germany, and an LL.M. from the Yale Law School (1982). In 1986, he was elected member of the International Institute of Space Law. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Martinus Nijhoff's Studies in Intercultural Human Rights. From 1997 to 2000, he was a lecturer at the UN/UNITAR International Law Fellowship Program. In October 2009 and November 2010, he served as Visiting Professor of Law at the City University of Hong Kong. In fall 2009, he was a Fernand Braudel Senior Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. From 2007 to 2010, he was a member of the Executive Council of The American Society of International Law. From 2008 to 2012, he served as the Chair of the International Law Association's Committee on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Douglas Samuel Jones, is an independent international arbitrator based in London, Sydney and Toronto. He is a door tenant at Atkin Chambers, London, and a member arbitrator at Arbitration Place in Toronto, Canada. He is married to Canadian scholar, author and international arbitrator, Janet Walker.
Janet Walker is a Chartered Arbitrator with offices in Toronto, Canada, London, England, and Sydney, Australia. She is a Canadian scholar and author in the fields of Private International Law and Civil Procedure at Osgoode Hall Law School, and is married to Australian lawyer and international arbitrator, Doug Jones AO.
The Center on International Commercial Arbitration at the American University's Washington College of Law (WCL) was founded in 2004, and provides academic training and a discussion forum for issues and developments in commercial arbitration. Its director is Horacio A. Grigera Naón, an independent international arbitrator and former Secretary General of the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce. In addition to seminars and discussions with practitioners, the Center hosts three annual programs: a summer program on international commercial arbitration, an annual seminar on international commercial arbitration and an annual lecture on international arbitration. Most of the events offer continuing legal education (CLE) credit.
