Many SEZs have been associated with compressions of land, labour and human rights. Investment treaties protect investments against adverse regulatory change, including in SEZs. To date, investors have brought at least 20 arbitrations to challenge diverse aspects of SEZ regimes.
Acacia threatened in October to use a bilateral investment treaty to force direct negotiations with Tanzania after Barrick failed to settle the row that has rumbled on for more than a year and a half.
The “moonlighting” debate echoes another controversial practice: that of “double hatting”, in which individuals wear two “hats” by simultaneously acting as arbitrators and legal counsel in international investment arbitration.
Combined with the dispute settlement mechanism of international arbitration, investment treaties have been transformed intol "weapons of legal destruction."
The UNCITRAL process runs a real risk of producing middle-ground solutions that will fail to address the fundamental flaws of the ISDS system and will only further institutionalise and re-legitimise the system.
More than 300 civil society groups and trade unions urged governments participating in United Nations meetings in Vienna to completely overhaul the controversial Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) system.
KLS Energy Lanka, the local subsidiary of Malaysian renewable energy producer Energy Sdn Bhd of Malaysia has initiated ICSID arbitration under the Sri Lanka-Malaysia BIT