ISDS: A Way Forward
Johan Billiet
President of the Association for International Arbitration / Founder of Billiet & Co
27th of May, Pleinlaan 5, 1050 Brussels
The AIA would like to thank all participants for this very interesting debate on ISDS in collaboration with the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (SCC). There were two panels with four participants each. They all presented a specific topic regarding ISDS, its need for reform or concerning a specific feature of this specific mechanism. ISDS is increasingly important in our world today, as shown by the negotiation of the TTIP/TAFTA and opposition of public opinion. It appeared that a reform is indeed needed, but to what extent?
Speakers have developed arguments on transparency and public opinion and the realistic position regarding harmonization of such conflicting concepts. As ISDS remains governed by autonomy of the parties, they can still choose which Rules of Arbitration to abide to and whether to render proceedings confidential or public. In such a paradigm, reforming ISDS appears more complicated than previously thought.
Moreover, ISDS mechanisms quickly adapt to changing expectations (for example, the SCC introduced an emergency arbitration procedure). It has also been argued that ISDS could actually help implement environmental requirements through specifically designed provisions and dispute resolution. The conflicts (of interest) opposing ISDS and other self-contained regimes of international law and interested parties has also been dealt with thanks to an overview of the role of Amici Curiae.
An extensive overview of issues surrounding ISDS was provided to participants of the seminar, with emphasis on the recognized facts and numbers regarding investor/state arbitration. Participants were also involved in a fact-based debate on the reform and way forward of ISDS and were provided with a Q&A session with the speakers.
Speakers included: Christer S?derlund, from Vinge; John Willems, from White&Case; Natalia Petrik, from the SCC; Andrina Sukhma, from the SCC as well; Manish Aggarwal, from Three Crown LLP; Fredrik Andersson, from Mannheimer Swartling; Paul Lefebvre, from Hanotiau & Van de Berg and Nicolas Angelet, from Liedekerke.
Moderators were Iuliana Iancu, from Hanotiau & Van de Berg and Johan Billiet from Billiet&Co.