Malaysian CSOs have urged the government to reject the inclusion of the ISDS clause in the RCEP agreement. They warn that ISDS allows foreign investors to sue governments over policies safeguarding public interests like health, workers, and the environment, potentially leading to costly legal battles and large payouts detrimental to national budgets.
India is actively negotiating bilateral investment treaties with over a dozen countries, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Israel, Oman, European Union, Switzerland, Russia, and Australia, a government official said.
Civil society organisations from the 15 member countries of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), call upon RCEP governments to continue to exclude Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) from the RCEP.
Croatia has lost the multi-year arbitration dispute that the French bank Societe Generale was leading against it before the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes in Washington.
The dispute arose under the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and Peru and concerned Lupaka’s investment in the Invicta gold project, located in the Andean highlands of Peru.
Samvel Karapetyan, a prominent businessman and a founder of Tashir Group, one of the largest group of companies in Eastern Europe, together with his family, sent a notice of investment dispute to the state officials of the Republic of Armenia.
Key features include the exclusion of concessions for natural resources from its protection remit, the inclusion of sovereign wealth funds as "Investors" and a denial of benefits clause.