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

February 13, 2026

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 as “procedural and cross-cutting issues”. It also underscored the growing pressure of time, the tension between ambition and deliverables, and the complexity of managing divergent State positions and shifting coalitions. These three themes are deeply interconnected, each shaping and constraining the others.  The session unfolded amid the fallout from the United States’ abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, a flagrant violation of international law that took place a week earlier. President Trump justified this abduction, at least in part, by invoking Venezuela’s earlier expropriation of U.S. oil companies and its failure to comply with ISDS awards ordering compensation to those investors. While the use of abduction as a complement to, or substitute for, ISDS…

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Reassessing Consent in Counterclaims: Rebalancing Investment Protection and Public Interest under the UNCITRAL ISDS Reform

November 27, 2025

In mid-2025, the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Working Group III (WGIII) released a new set of Draft Provisions on Procedural and Cross-Cutting Issues, as part of its ongoing reform of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), which aims at addressing long-standing concerns about the fairness, balance, and effectiveness of the current system. One of…

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Time and Compromise in UNCITRAL’s Working Group III

October 22, 2025

During the week of 22 September 2025, States once again met in Vienna under Working Group III (WGIII) of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) to deliberate reforms to investor–State dispute settlement (ISDS). Since receiving its mandate in 2017, WGIII has been tasked with identifying and addressing concerns about the ISDS system embedded in investment…

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A Multilateral Instrument on ISDS Reform (MIIR): Selected Design Issues

June 3, 2025

Introduction This post addresses issues being considered in the UNCITRAL Working Group III process in relation to the design of a multilateral instrument on investor–State dispute settlement (ISDS) reform (hereinafter an ‘MIIR’). An MIIR is envisioned as the legal mechanism for applying the various reform options being developed by UNCITRAL Working Group III to the extensive…

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Compliance through Enforcement in ISDS: What can UNCITRAL Working Group III learn from the ECtHR?

April 9, 2025

The ISDS reform process at UNCITRAL Working Group III provides a unique opportunity to consider new institutional dispute settlement designs. As EJIL:Talk! Readers will know from earlier blogs on this reform process, a standing mechanism to resolve investment disputes is one of the key proposals in the strengthening of the institutional design, with a Draft Statute…

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