Investment Protection in Extraordinary Times: The Interpretation and Application of Non-Precluded Measures Provisions in Bilateral Investment Treaties

When threatened by crises such as global terrorism, financial collapse, pandemic diseases, and natural disasters, states may resort to measures that harm the interests of foreign investors protected under the bilateral investment treaty (BIT) regime. Many such BITs, however, contain heretofore under-studied clauses that preclude liability for state actions taken in response to exceptional circumstances. These non-precluded measures (NPM) clauses effectively transfer the risk of and costs associated with state action in exceptional circumstances from the host-states of international investments to the investors. In two recent cases brought against Argentina in response to the Argentine financial crisis, ICSID tribunals have interpreted the NPM clause in the U.S.-Argentina BIT in radically different ways, with one tribunal holding Argentina liable and the other excusing Argentina from compensating investors. This article provides the first detailed study of NPM clauses in international investment law. It argues that NPM clauses are, in fact, a widespread element of the international law of foreign investment. To guide states, investors, and arbitral tribunals, the article offers a framework for the interpretation of NPM clauses, based on the practice of key states including the U.S., Germany, and India. In so doing, the article imports the margin of appreciation doctrine from European human rights law into international investment arbitration as a mechanism for determining the scope of deference to be accorded to critical state policies by ad hoc arbitral tribunals. More generally, the article argues that the risk-allocation function performed by NPM clauses is of considerable significance to the depth of international legal cooperation, the response of states to international crises, and the flow of international investments

Private Litigation in a Public Law Sphere:The Standard of Review in Investor-State Arbitrations

International arbitration and, particularly, investor-state arbitration is rapidly shifting to include disputes of a public law nature. Yet, arbitral tribunals continue to apply standards of review derived from the private law origins of international arbitration, have not recognized the new public law context of these disputes, and have failed to develop a coherent jurisprudence with regard to the applicable standard for reviewing a state\u27s public regulatory activities. This problematic approach is evidenced by a recent series of cases brought by foreign investors against Argentina challenging the economic recovery program launched after a massive financial collapse and has called into question the legitimacy of investor-state arbitration more generally. A comparative analysis of public law standards of review from both other international courts and the domestic systems of the U.S. and Germany demonstrates that arbitral tribunals have a variety of standards of review from which they could borrow to develop a coherent jurisprudence. While any consistently applied public law standard of review that recognizes the competing public interests at stake in this new form of international arbitration would be preferable to the status quo, we argue that for reasons of institutional capacity, expertise, and embeddedness, the margin of appreciation as developed by the European Court of Human Rights may offer the best path forward. The consistent application of a margin of appreciation when reviewing public law regulatory activities of states would allow arbitral tribunals to grant appropriate deference to national authorities while simultaneously protecting investor rights, thereby helping to close the growing legitimacy gap in investor-state arbitration

Investment Protection in Extraordinary Times: The Interpretation and Application of Non-Precluded Measures Provisions in Bilateral Investment Treaties

When threatened by crises such as global terrorism, financial collapse, pandemic diseases, and natural disasters, states may resort to measures that harm the interests of foreign investors protected under the bilateral investment treaty (BIT) regime. Many such BITs, however, contain heretofore under-studied clauses that preclude liability for state actions taken in response to exceptional circumstances. These non-precluded measures (NPM) clauses effectively transfer the risk of and costs associated with state action in exceptional circumstances from the host-states of international investments to the investors. In two recent cases brought against Argentina in response to the Argentine financial crisis, ICSID tribunals have interpreted the NPM clause in the U.S.-Argentina BIT in radically different ways, with one tribunal holding Argentina liable and the other excusing Argentina from compensating investors. This article provides the first detailed study of NPM clauses in international investment law. It argues that NPM clauses are, in fact, a widespread element of the international law of foreign investment. To guide states, investors, and arbitral tribunals, the article offers a framework for the interpretation of NPM clauses, based on the practice of key states including the U.S., Germany, and India. In so doing, the article imports the margin of appreciation doctrine from European human rights law into international investment arbitration as a mechanism for determining the scope of deference to be accorded to critical state policies by ad hoc arbitral tribunals. More generally, the article argues that the risk-allocation function performed by NPM clauses is of considerable significance to the depth of international legal cooperation, the response of states to international crises, and the flow of international investments

Pluralisierung normativer Ordnungen und resultierende Normkonflikte: Lösungsstrategien und ihr Erfolg

Die fragmentierte Verrechtlichung des internationalen Raums, die Proliferation von Regelungsarrangements jenseits des Staates und die Diffusion globaler Normen sowie die daraus resultierenden Geltungs-, Kompetenz- und Autoritätskonflikte sind seit geraumer Zeit ein in der sozialwissenschaftlichen Literatur viel diskutiertes Phänomen. Überlappungen von nationalen Regierungssystemen und von im Völkerrecht verankerten klassischen internationalen Regimen existieren seit der Schaffung des Westfälischen Staatensystems.In jüngerer Zeit verstärkte sich der Pluralismus normativer Ordnungen jedoch global durch neuartige Typen von Regelungsarrangements jenseits des Staates. Auch unter den zwischenstaatlich geschaffenen internationalen Institutionen finden sich solche, die autonome Handlungs- und Entscheidungskompetenzen zugesprochen bekommen haben und diese als Akteure mit eigener Subjektivität ausüben. Hinzu kommt eine immer stärkere Aufnahme von „behind the border issues“ in den Aufgabenkatalog dieser Regime und Organisationen (Zürn 2004). Diese Entwicklungen führen zu einem neuen Grad an Kontestation und Umstrittenheit globaler normativer Ordnungen. Weder die Herstellung einer einheitlichen globalen normativen Ordnung noch eine Re-Nationalisierung des Rechts erscheinen heute als realistische Zukunftsprognosen. Umso wichtiger ist es daher, sich mit den Auswirkungen dieses Pluralismus’ normativer Ordnungen zu beschäftigen

Pluralisierung normativer Ordnungen und resultierende Normkonflikte: Lösungsstrategien und ihr Erfolg

Die fragmentierte Verrechtlichung des internationalen Raums, die Proliferation von Regelungsarrangements jenseits des Staates und die Diffusion globaler Normen sowie die daraus resultierenden Geltungs-, Kompetenz- und Autoritätskonflikte sind seit geraumer Zeit ein in der sozialwissenschaftlichen Literatur viel diskutiertes Phänomen. Überlappungen von nationalen Regierungssystemen und von im Völkerrecht verankerten klassischen internationalen Regimen existieren seit der Schaffung des Westfälischen Staatensystems.In jüngerer Zeit verstärkte sich der Pluralismus normativer Ordnungen jedoch global durch neuartige Typen von Regelungsarrangements jenseits des Staates. Auch unter den zwischenstaatlich geschaffenen internationalen Institutionen finden sich solche, die autonome Handlungs- und Entscheidungskompetenzen zugesprochen bekommen haben und diese als Akteure mit eigener Subjektivität ausüben. Hinzu kommt eine immer stärkere Aufnahme von „behind the border issues“ in den Aufgabenkatalog dieser Regime und Organisationen (Zürn 2004). Diese Entwicklungen führen zu einem neuen Grad an Kontestation und Umstrittenheit globaler normativer Ordnungen. Weder die Herstellung einer einheitlichen globalen normativen Ordnung noch eine Re-Nationalisierung des Rechts erscheinen heute als realistische Zukunftsprognosen. Umso wichtiger ist es daher, sich mit den Auswirkungen dieses Pluralismus’ normativer Ordnungen zu beschäftigen

Vitalism and the Resistance to Experimentation on Life in the Eighteenth Century

There is a familiar opposition between a ‘Scientific Revolution’ ethos and practice of experimentation, including experimentation on life, and a ‘vitalist’ reaction to this outlook. The former is often allied with different forms of mechanism – if all of Nature obeys mechanical laws, including living bodies, ‘iatromechanism’ should encounter no obstructions in investigating the particularities of animal-machines – or with more chimiatric theories of life and matter, as in the ‘Oxford Physiologists’. The latter reaction also comes in different, perhaps irreducibly heterogeneous forms, ranging from metaphysical and ethical objections to the destruction of life, as in Margaret Cavendish, to more epistemological objections against the usage of instruments, the ‘anatomical’ outlook and experimentation, e.g. in Locke and Sydenham. But I will mainly focus on a third anti-interventionist argument, which I call ‘vitalist’ since it is often articulated in the writings of the so-called Montpellier Vitalists, including their medical articles for the Encyclopédie. The vitalist argument against experimentation on life is subtly different from the metaphysical, ethical and epistemological arguments, although at times it may borrow from any of them. It expresses a Hippocratic sensibility – understood as an artifact of early modernity, not as some atemporal trait of medical thought – in which Life resists the experimenter, or conversely, for the experimenter to grasp something about Life, it will have to be without torturing or radically intervening in it. I suggest that this view does not have to imply that Nature is something mysterious or sacred; nor does the vitalist have to attack experimentation on life in the name of some ‘vital force’ – which makes it less surprising to find a vivisectionist like Claude Bernard sounding so close to the vitalists