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Like the Journal of International Economic Law, which we celebrate with this special 25th Anniversary issue, investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) came to life in the second half of the 1990s. The aim of this contribution is to ask whether ISDS has gone through any 'transformation', that is any 'complete' or 'radical' change, in the last twenty-five years. The article argues that, while a lot has changed in two and a half decades, in particular, the amount and breadth of criticism against investor-state arbitration, ISDS remains fundamentally the same, at least if one focuses on the practice of ISDS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inconsistency in legal interpretation is among the most salient problems in investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) and it is one of the key issues being addressed by the reform efforts in the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Working Group III. While some degree of interpretive inconsistency is endemic to any legal order, systemic inconsistency tends to undermine the basic purposes of the investment treaty regime – namely protecting and promoting foreign direct investment through predictable international legal rules and institutions. This article seeks to parse the problem of inconsistency at a more granular level, in order to distinguish between types of norms where a degree of inconsistency is (relatively) manageable and (potentially) tolerable, and those where inconsistency is unacceptable. We argue that it is with regard to structural 'rules of the game' where inconsistency is most destructive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the editor discusses the various topics within the issue, including United Kingdom's (UK) role as champion of global free trade, economic partnership agreements (EPA), and the UK's Global Britain strategy.

The number of international agreements purporting to liberalise trade, mainly focused on reducing protectionist measures through the imposition of general principles, has increased greatly over the last 25 years. More recently, the United States and the European Union (EU) concluded comprehensive agreements covering trade in goods, trade in services, and foreign investment. This article inquires whether, and the extent to which, such agreements represent a departure from previous practice. It focuses on (a) the instruments employed to address domestic regulation affecting trade in services and (b) three specific agreements concluded between 2016 and 2018: the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, and the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. While these recent Preferential Trade Agreements put forward novel approaches to regulatory diversity affecting trade in services, it is too early to ascertain whether these will have any ground-breaking impact in terms of services trade liberalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While 'regulatory stability' regularly features in the decisions of investment arbitral tribunals interpreting the fair and equitable treatment (FET) provision, the extent to which the FET standard disciplines 'adverse regulatory change' in the absence of an express stabilization commitment from the host State is far from clear. Based on the conceptual distinction between the requirement of 'strict' v 'soft' regulatory stability, the paper aims to show the way investment treaty tribunals have applied the FET provision in cases of host States' regulatory change. The paper argues that, despite the fact that investment tribunals have increasingly recognized the need to find a better balance between protecting foreign investors from adverse regulatory changes and the right of host States to regulate in the public interest, several recent arbitral tribunals still fail to clearly set out the role of regulatory stability within the FET standard, thus failing to assuage the fears that investment treaties may indeed function as imposing excessive restraints on host States' right to regulate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines consequences of Brexit, Great Britain's decision to leave the membership of European Union (EU), on British trade policy, as of December 2016. Topics discussed include post-Brexit settlement; different types of possible effect upon the practice and substance of British Constitution; and constitutional referendum made in relation to the June 2016 Brexit poll.

The article assesses the definition of indirect expropriation included in the recent European Union (EU) proposal within the context of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiation. The article argues that, while the EU proposal is likely to have narrowed the scope of the concept of indirect expropriation, in terms of providing ‘greater certainty’, we are not there yet. Like similar attempts before it, the EU proposal refers to a variety of different legal approaches without sufficiently clarifying their content and relationship. While this lack of clarity emphasizes the indecision among policy makers, including the EU, about where to draw the line between an indirect expropriation and a legitimate regulatory measure, it ultimately suggests that there are still doubts about the proper function of international investment law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Award rendered in the Accession Mezzanine v. Hungary arbitration which reminds the existence and complexity of what constitutes expropriation.

The article discusses the nature of the investment treaty system in the establishment of the transnational framework for controlling the public decision making at domestic levels. It focuses on the purpose and objectives of building up the investment treaties. It compares the methodologies in variety of sources including English judicial review, French administrative law and law of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The article focuses on the reconstruction of structure and function of investment protection norms of the International Investment treaties by incorporating a new approach encompassing the contribution from European Union as well. It informs that policymakers must restrict the role of certain investment norms by ensuring that they operate as rules and not as standards. This approach would present the discrete interpretation investment disciplines as being either pro-investor or pro-host State.

From a scholar, practitioner and policy-maker perspective, at the heart of the recent taking of centre stage of international investment law stand without doubt the several hundreds decisions rendered by investment treaty tribunals. Despite the fact that there is no general duty to make investment treaty decisions fully public, the great majority of decisions rendered in (at least known) investment treaty arbitrations appears to make its way into the public domain. The important role played by publicly available investment decisions in terms of internal and external legitimacy revolves around the reasoning underlying such decisions. By exploiting the public availability of investment treaty decisions, the aim of the article is to contribute to the strengthening of the international investment system by sketching three types of egregious failures in the reasoning underlying some of these decisions: (a) misuse of precedent, (b) lack of internal consistency and (c) minimalism. The claim is that these three failures are ‘egregious’ in the sense that they represent instances where the investment tribunal's reasoning is manifestly ‘contradictory’, ‘inconsistent’ or ‘practically non-existent’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

‘Before the game begins players should agree on a dictionary to use in case of a challenge.’ (from the Official Rules of SCRABBLE®) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the issues confronting international investment agreements with regards to solidifying economic dimensions alongside underlying social dimension. The promotion and protection of foreign investment has been a core objective of economic cooperation among States. Institutional options that have been considered in improving current foreign investment disciplines are presented. With the integration of the global market place, the need to emphasize on social implications of promoting international investment flows increases.