From PluriCourts
The Present and Future Role of Investment Treaty Arbitration in Adjudicating Environmental Disputes (Oslo, 5-6 November 2015) – Call for Papers, Deadline: 15 July 2015.
The interaction between international investment law and (inter)national environmental law has been of interest to scholars and practitioners for quite some time. Most of the discourse and analysis has focused on issues of fragmentation, conflict, and the balancing of obligations between legal regimes as they arise in the context of disputes before investment treaty tribunals. Many of these cases call upon arbitrators to decide whether a change to a state’s environmental regime is justified even where such changes might violate the state’s obligations under an international investment agreement (eg a fracking moratorium, changes in zoning regulations, or a nuclear phase-out program).
However, there are also other potential interactions between these regimes. There is an emerging strand of scholarship and reform-minded practice focusing on the ways in which international investment law and environmental law can be mutually supportive and complimentary. These approaches could be investigated from a number of angles: 1) how, when, and to what extent can future international investment agreement practice – as informed by existing treaty practice and jurisprudence – integrate environmental sustainability and protection components (eg GATT-like general exceptions, inclusion of elements to promote and facilitate sustainable investment, etc.) while still protecting legitimate foreign investments; 2) how, when, and to what extent could environmental agreements (especially those relating to the funding of climate change mitigation and adaptation) incorporate ‘green’ investment protections that are subject to dispute settlement provisions; and 3) how might investment treaty tribunals help promote a state’s compliance with environmental obligations where such compliance is the basis of the foreign investor’s claim (eg the pending Allard v Barbados claim). This symposium will focus on investment treaty arbitration from a forward-looking perspective on how future practice might be shaped or reformed in a way that can both promote environmental sustainability and protect responsible and legitimate foreign investments. In light of this focus, the symposium will engage participants in discussions on specific reform proposals and practical policy and treaty practice responses to issues dealing with how international investment law and environmental law might become more mutually supportive and complimentary especially in the context of the adjudication of foreign investment disputes concerning environmental issues. The symposium is arranged by the PluriCourts Center of Excellence at the University of Oslo, Department of Public and International Law. PluriCourts studies the legitimate roles of international courts and tribunals in the global order: http://www.jus.uio.no/pluricourts/english/
The call for papers is here.
I've been wondering for some time now if some enterprising environmental NGO would find a way to make a claim that a government's failure to take action against climate change violates one of the vague and amorphous principles in international investment agreements. Perhaps such a claim would be a little far-fetched, but I'm not sure it would be more far-fetched than many of the other claims out there.
