Investor-State Dispute Settlement Reform. The Way Forward

On January 17, 2020, the International and Comparative Law Research Center held a workshop on the pertinent issues of the Investor-State Dispute Settlement Reform including those associated with the creation of a Multilateral Investment Court which is currently in the focus of the UNCITRAL Working Group III   (Investor-State Dispute Settlement Reform). The event was attended by state officials and the representatives of academia and business.

The General Director of the Center, Victoria Manko delivered a welcome address. The participants of the workshop were also welcomed via video presentation by the Secretary of the UNCITRAL, Anna Joubin-Bret who delivered a status note on the current progress in Working Group III deliberations.

The discussion was moderated by Sergey Usoskin who has reach experience in handling all types of international disputes. The panel included the following distinguished speakers:

• Diego Gosis – GST LLP, Partner (Miami office);
• Evgeniya Goriatcheva – Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague, Senior Legal Counsel;
• Baiju Vasani – Ivanyan & Partners, Managing Partner (Europe);
• Prof. Michail Risvas – IE University, Professor of Public International Law.

The participants of the workshop delved into the most pressing topics, particularly:

• Jurisdiction of the court;
• Whether the new court needs to be a complete alternative to the investment arbitration system or provide only an appeal mechanism with respect to investment treaty awards;
• Appointment of adjudicators, including discussion of the current state of play with respect to appointment of arbitrators;
• Organization and financing of the court;
• Enforcement of the decisions of the court.

During the second part of the workshop, the participants exchanged their views and raised a number of questions that contributed to the discussion.

The event was live-streamed on the Center's YouTube channel.