Anthea Roberts

Written by Anthea Roberts and Taylor St. John ‘Can you hear me now?’ is a question that the delegates of Working Group III asked each other often last week, as negotiations on ISDS reform continued but were, for the first time, online. Moving online means that negotiators are also facing

By Anthea Roberts and Nicolas Lamp Narratives provide the storylines through which people make sense of the world. Actors strategically deploy narratives to advance agendas, telling stories about what or who is to blame and what should be done. When it comes to the coronavirus, multiple narratives are emerging. Instead

By Anthea Roberts and Taylor St John As observers of the UNCITRAL process, we watch the debates with great interest, writing about the emergence of different camps, giving perspectives on how the process fits within broader geopolitical developments, and offering potential models for moving forward. One thing that we are

By Anthea Roberts and Taylor St John When conducting an international negotiation, the Chair has to ask him or herself: what makes something fly? This question really has two parts. The first concerns the negotiations themselves. Once you’ve taken off and achieved a certain cruising speed and altitude, how

By Anthea Roberts and Taylor St John In UNCITRAL, states have broken through the impasse of the incrementalist and systemic reformer camps. They have all agreed that they want to pursue systemic reform, but they have different ideas about what that entails and what to prioritise. In broad terms, agreement

By Anthea Roberts and Taylor St. John UNCITRAL Working Group III met in Vienna last week to continue its discussions about how to reform investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). In April 2019, the Working Group agreed that the ISDS system suffered from significant problems and required reform. In colloquial terms, the

By Anthea Roberts and Taylor St. John  On 17 July 2019, South Africa made its submission to UNCITRAL on investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS) reform in which it seeks a “paradigm-shift” in investment law. In keeping with our description of South Africa as a “widener” in the UNCITRAL debates, the

By Anthea Roberts and Taylor St John* On 19 July 2019, China submitted its proposal on investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) reform to UNCITRAL. A Chinese version is available, though an English translation is yet to be posted. China reaffirms its commitment to ISDS as an important mechanism for resolving investor-state