Inside US Trade has a copy of the Trump administration's draft notice to Congress "that the President intends to initiate negotiations related to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and its architecture," in which they set out "specific objectives for negotiation."  Not surprisingly,

The Yukos case is among the most flamboyant investor-state arbitrations (Chevron v. Ecuador a close competitor).  Yukos reads like a paperback thriller-settling of scores between rogue oligarchs and the Putin regime with billions at stake.  Definitely worth a mini-series on HBO or Showtime. Last night at the ISDS answer to

BBC has the Article 50 withdrawal notification letter here.  Not surprisingly, it does not tell us much about how the withdrawal talks will go (the UK would like a "deep and special partnership" with the EU). The substance of the negotiations will become more clear as we move

Lots of people are asking about what the Trump administration will do with investment treaties and investment chapters of FTAs.  Will their sovereignty concerns mean they reject ISDS?  Or will their pro-business views mean they support ISDS? This from the LA Times is one of the first reports of White

Compliance review in the DS461 dispute, Colombia - Textiles, is proceeding in the strangest order I can remember seeing.  Keep in mind that Panama was the complainant and Colombia was the respondent in the underlying dispute. Here's the timeline of the compliance part: February 9, 2017: Panama proposes

As I mentioned here last week, TransCanada's NAFTA Chapter 11 claim is now over, after the State Department issued a Presidential permit for building the Keystone XL pipeline.  The transcript of President Trump talking about this with TransCanada's CEO is here, and the ICSID web site

It is a well-known story that Big Pharma aggressively uses trade negotiations, political lobbying, and domestic and international litigation (and the threat thereof) to expand the monopoly rents it gains from patent protection, and defeat the effort of states to limit intellectual property rights in the public interest, whether through

Given my concerns about ISDS and its effects on the policy space of states, sometimes people are surprised to learn that I have consulted to the investor's counsel in a number of these disputes.  The fact is, though, that sometimes the investor happens to be the good guy,

OK, not really on ISDS, but touching on ISDS to a very slight degree. Here's what he said a couple days ago: I’ve cleared the way for the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines -- and added a requirement that American pipelines be constructed with American steel.

From the Centre for Law, Regulation and Governance of the Global Economy (GLOBE) at the University of Warwick: On Tuesday, 16 May 2017, the Centre for Law, Regulation and Governance of the Global Economy (GLOBE) at the University of Warwick, as part of the International Economic Law in Context Seminar