Bilateral Investment Treaties

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Investment Arbitration as Ransom? The EU Sanctions Regime and ‘Administrative Chill’

October 15, 2026

Güneş Ünüvar

Introduction and Factual Background: Fridman v Luxembourg In February 2022, shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the European Union placed Mikhail Fridman on its sanctions list. The designation subjected the Russian-Israeli businessman’s funds and economic resources to an asset freeze, affecting interests held through Luxembourg - including his 37.9% ownership of the investment group LetterOne. Luxembourg consequently became the focal point in Fridman’s efforts to challenge the sanctions and recover access to his investments. Those efforts would eventually place the country in the position of defending its first known investment treaty arbitration. The arbitration commenced in 2024, with Fridman seeking approximately $16 billion in compensation. His claim invokes the 1989 Bilateral Investment Treaty between the Belgium–Luxembourg Economic Union and the Soviet Union (BLEU – Russia BIT). While the details are not publicly available, his claim is that Luxembourg’s freezing of Fridman’s assets interfered with his investments protected under the BIT, allegedly amounting to indirect expropriation. As such, the proceedings bring Luxembourg’s implementation of EU sanctions measures within…

National Security as a Sword for Expropriation: The UK-China BIT on the Brink

August 5, 2026

Yin Wei

The UK government nationalised British Steel on 16 July 2026. The nationalisation was carried out under the Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Act 2026. Jingye Group, a Chinese enterprise, had acquired the company in 2020 with a pledged investment of £1.2 billion. Jingye has now initiated consultation procedures under the UK-China Bilateral Investment Treaty…

Rewriting Article 422: Ecuador’s Constitutional Court, ISDS, and the Limits of Judicial Constitutional Change

May 6, 2026

Ladan Mehranvar

Introduction On 30 March 2026, Ecuador’s Constitutional Court issued Dictamen 19-25-TI/26A, conditionally approving the Agreement for the Promotion and Protection of Investments between Ecuador and the United Arab Emirates (the “UAE BIT”), including the investor-State dispute settlement (“ISDS”) mechanism established in Article 20. The ruling concludes a two-stage constitutional review: on 5 March 2026,…

Essential Security Interests Exceptions and the Limits of Self-Judgment: Implications of Riverside Coffee v Nicaragua

March 19, 2026

Fabian Eichberger

In recent years, national security has increasingly served as a justification to deviate from international law obligations. The ICSID award in Riverside Coffee v Nicaragua has added a new layer to the developing case law on the interplay between essential security interests exceptions and the notion of self-judgment in the context of investment arbitration. …

Time, Form, and Coalitions: Reflections on the 53rd Session of UNCITRAL Working Group III

February 13, 2026

Jonathan Bonnitcha

Ladan Mehranvar

The 53rd Session of UNCITRAL Working Group III (WGIII), held in mid-January 2026 in New York, marked another modest but revealing step in the long road toward reforming investor–State dispute settlement (ISDS). The meeting delivered some progress, particularly in clarifying what kind of legal instrument(s) might eventually emerge from the cluster of partially linked reform options grouped together for discussion…

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Ecuador v. United States Inter-State Arbitration under a BIT: How to Interpret the Word “Interpretation”?

August 31, 2012

Dapo Akande

There is an inter-State arbitration pending between Ecuador and the United States under the Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) between those two countries (Treaty between United States of America and the Republic of Ecuador Concerning the Encouragement and Reciprocal Protection of Investment, 27 August 1993). The Ecuador v. US case , which was initiated in June 2011, is, as far as…

Nottebohm Under Attack (Again): Is it Time for Reconciliation?

December 10, 2021

Javier García Olmedo

Introduction The Nottebohm judgment has recently come under attack in the context of the European Commission’s position on investment by citizenship (CBI) schemes, also known as “golden passport” programmes. These schemes allow individuals to obtain a second citizenship in a host country in exchange for financial investments or even just a flat fee. On 20…

Achmea: The principle of autonomy and its implications for intra and extra-EU BITs

March 27, 2018

Angelos Dimopoulos

On 6 March 2018, the CJEU issued its judgment in Case C-284/16 Achmea, where it opined that intra-EU BITs and in particular their ISDS provisions are incompatible with the principle of autonomy of EU law. In a rather brief judgment, the Court found the ISDS provision under the Netherlands-Slovakia BIT has an adverse effect on the autonomy…

Urbaser v Argentina: The Origins of a Host State Human Rights Counterclaim in ICSID Arbitration?

February 10, 2017

Edward Guntrip

Investment tribunals rarely examine host state arguments based on international human rights law in great depth. The ICSID award Urbaser v Argentina is the first to provide a detailed discussion of a host state’s human rights counterclaim. Hence, this decision presents an opportunity to more fully understand the role of human rights in investment arbitration. As the…