Investor-State Dispute Settlement - The Latest Reforms Examined

Introduction

Investing abroad can be both an attractive and risky bet. A core way to mitigate the risks of foreign investments is to rely on the protections in investor-State dispute settlement, a system through which investors can achieve recourse from foreign governments in the event of a dispute.

International investment protection has come a long way from gunboat diplomacy, with now thousands of investment treaties allowing investors direct recourse to arbitration over expropriation or other adverse regulation by a host State. Aimed at transactional lawyers, commercial litigators and in-house counsel, this webinar will cover the fundamentals of investor-State dispute settlement before turning to examine the latest reforms. For example, how are States responding to criticisms that the investor-State dispute settlement system fails to account for the need for States to regulate in the public interest, including to protect human rights and the environment? Why are some States - particularly within the European Union - taking steps to terminate investment treaties, including the Energy Charter Treaty?

What You Will Learn

This webinar will cover the following:

• The relevance of investor-State dispute settlement to your clients’ work
• The origins of investor-State dispute settlement
• The key criticisms of investor-State dispute settlement
• Latest developments in relation to the Energy Charter Treaty reform
• The key substantive and procedural reforms to and developments in investor-State dispute settlement
• An overview of reform projects, such as the work of the UNCITRAL Working Group on Investor-State dispute settlement and the Multilateral Investment Court
• The prospective trajectory of investor-State dispute settlement and how this impacts your clients, whether they already invest abroad or are considering doing so

This webinar was recorded on 14th May 2025

You can gain access to this webinar and 1,700+ others via the MBL Webinar Subscription. Please email webinarsubscription@mblseminars.com for more details.