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Additional file 1. Participant Questionnaire.

Power devices based on wide-bandgap (WBG) material such as silicon-carbide (SiC) can operate at higher switching speeds, higher voltages and higher temperatures compared to those based on silicon (Si) material. This paper highlights some opportunities brought by SiC devices in existing and emerging applications in terms of efficiency and power density improvement. While the opportunities are clear, there are also design challenges that must be met in order to realize their full potential. For example, the fast switching speeds and high dv/dt of SiC devices can cause increased electromagnetic interference (EMI), current overshoot, cross-talk effect and have a negative impact on loads such as motors. This paper presents several potential solutions to tackle the application challenges and to fully exploit the superior characteristics of SiC devices and converters while attenuating their negative side-effects. This paper provides an overview of recent SiC device research and development activities based on the academic literature, work carried out by the authors and collaborators as well as input from industry. It aims to provide benchmark results and a timely and useful reference for power electronics engineers, to accelerate the adoption and deployment of SiC devices and converters.

This chapter examines one of the most underestimated areas of proof in investor-state arbitration—the proof of law. The first evidentiary principle governing proof of law is the maxim of iura novit curia, or the tribunal or court knows the law. The principle is fraught with difficulty when applied to investor-state arbitration. The practice of investor-state arbitration on its face disproves the assumption that tribunals know the law in a non-trivial sense. This difficulty does not mean, however, that iura novit curia is wholly inapplicable to investor-state arbitration. Rather, as the chapter shows, the principle must be carefully circumscribed in order to avoid potential annullable error.

This chapter introduces the standard of proof. The standard of proof provides the amount of evidence that must be provided by the party that has the burden (ie the party making the allegation). As such, it is a concept that is closely related with the burden of proof. The standard of proof helps explain how much evidence needs to be proffered by the party that has the burden of proving any particular issue in question. Since the distinction between the burden and standard of proof remains so contentious in investor-state arbitration, the chapter distinguishes the two by considering who must do the proving, and how much needs to be proved.

This book is a guide for practitioners representing a party in investment arbitration disputes, and offers academics a perspective on the practical elements affecting the treatment of evidence in the area. The book uses a comparative approach to demonstrate the points of commonality and uniformity in the transnational foundations of the law of evidence as it affects international investment arbitration, providing theoretical and practical guidance on the treatment of evidence at all stages of such disputes. It examines the rules of evidence as recognized in the traditional rules of international law; the theory and function of international investment law dispute resolution against which the role of evidence must be assessed; practical management of the evidence-gathering process in investment arbitration disputes; and what to anticipate as challenges in the gathering and pleading of evidence in these disputes. The chapters cover a broad range of evidence-based topics, including: the burden and standard of proof, presumptions and inferences, witness and expert evidence, exclusionary rules including privileged and confidential documents, and annulment.

This chapter gives the first full-length treatment of the law and principles of evidence applicable to witness and expert testimony. One of the most underdeveloped areas in the literature concerns witnesses and experts. Witnesses and experts are crucial parts of any investor-state arbitration. In fact, most if not all investor-state arbitrations rely upon the testimony of witnesses and experts in order to prove central factual and legal issues in dispute between the parties. Hence, the chapter covers direct as well as cross-examination and aims to provide a better understanding to parties in framing witness statements as well as to counsel and tribunals in managing cross-examination at a hearing.

This chapter outlines the exclusionary rules of evidence. In the context of investor-state arbitration proceedings, all evidence proffered by the parties is admitted into the record in the absence of exceptional circumstances. A party seeking to exclude evidence typically carries the burden to convince the tribunal that it should exclude the evidence in question. In seeking to do so, it will have to meet a reasonably high standard of proof. Consequently, exclusion of evidence is warranted only in the limited circumstances when its inclusion would violate another party’s right to be heard, the equality of the parties, or fundamental principles of international public policy. Given the exceptional nature of excluding relevant and material evidence in international arbitration, the burden is on the party seeking to exclude evidence. The exceptional nature of these limitations indicates the premium placed by international arbitration on the free evaluation of evidence by the arbitrators.

This chapter considers annulment in the context of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). Here, annulment controls the process of arbitral decision-making rather than its result. As a control mechanism, annulment is centrally concerned with the question whether a tribunal applied the principles of evidence codified in arbitral procedure or cast those same principles aside to make a decision on a completely different basis. Parties perceive the legitimacy of a process of dispute settlement in terms of the predictability with which decision-makers appraise their factual submissions. As such, principles of evidence are central to the mission of annulment to ‘maintain the vitality and integrity of a process of dispute resolution by providing the degree of supervision sufficient to correct violations of parties’ expectations in a way that sustains confidence in the efficiency and fairness of ICSID arbitration’.

This chapter submits that investor-state arbitration faces a common core set of problems that tribunals hearing these claims must resolve. Commentators of, and participants in, investor-state arbitration typically submit that there is only one rule of evidence: the free appreciation of evidence by the arbitrator. Given the ubiquity of the sentiment that there are no rules of evidence in investor-state arbitration, this chapter first attempts to examine where this perceived wisdom has gone wrong. This premise starts from a foundational coincidence of the who, what, how, and why of the decision-making process involving states and foreign investors. The coincidence explains why principles could form in the first place, given the role of the process participants, the subject matter of the process, and the operations of the process, as well as its constitutive values.

This chapter discusses the concept of the burden of proof in investor-state arbitration. The basic rule regarding the burden of proof in international law is that the party who makes an assertion must prove it. The rule has its origins in the traditions of Roman, common, and civil law countries, and is not new or unique to investment arbitration. In fact, this principle has been widely recognized by several international dispute settlement panels, as well as other international agencies. Not every set of arbitration rules explicitly includes this rule, however, although there is near unanimity by tribunals and commentators in its application.

This chapter provides an overview of issues relating to documentary evidence and document production. In any investor-state arbitration case, each party is responsible for producing the evidence required to prove its case. This evidence can be introduced either through the production of documentary evidence or through witness testimony. Similarly, a party may need certain documents from opposing counsel. Here, the fundamental understanding of the term ‘document’ is not restricted merely to ‘paper’—to actual documents written in words. Documentary evidence can appear in a wide range of styles (such as drawings, emails, pictures, charts, graphs, and many more) and a wide range of forms (physical, audio, visual, electronic, and more).

This chapter explains the process of ‘shifting the burden of evidence’, otherwise known as the ‘shifting principle’. This is the proposition which occurs when the party who bears the initial burden puts forward evidence to support its initial claim. Here, the burden of evidence (or alternatively also termed as the ‘burden of production’, ‘burden of persuasion’, or ‘burden of proceeding’) shifts to the other party to rebut the evidence put forward. Shifting the burden of evidence is to be read in conjunction with the burden of proof principle discussed in the previous chapter. This is because it is only when the initial burden of the party making an allegation is met that the burden is shifted to the other party.

This chapter considers presumptions, which serve as an efficiency or prudential function in court proceedings. Tribunals can make findings of fact by reference to presumptions. The use of presumptions means that the tribunal makes a determination of fact that is not premised upon direct evidence or project-specific circumstantial evidence. The tribunal instead is convinced of the truth of a fact premised upon the proof of relevant general surrounding circumstances. The use of presumptions is ubiquitous in investor-state arbitrations, as it is in other domestic and international disputes, because the predicate of a legal claim typically is the asserted deviation by one or both the parties of relevant general practices or expected background circumstances by the other.

This chapter highlights the three commonly identified standards of proof in investor-state arbitration. The first is the prima facie evidence standard, which involves an examination of the facts as alleged by the claimant to see whether such facts would amount to a breach of the treaty and otherwise fall within the jurisdiction of the tribunal. The second standard is the preponderance of evidence or the balance of probabilities. This standard requires an evaluation of all the evidence produced by both parties on a particular issue and this evaluation ultimately results in the tribunal determining which party’s evidence is more likely than not to be true. Finally, there is the heightened standard of proof. Here, the standard is higher than a balance of probabilities but lower than the criminal law standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt.

This chapter discusses the use of inferences. The use of inferences means that the tribunal makes a determination of fact that is not premised upon direct evidence. The tribunal thus is convinced of the truth of a fact despite the absence of a document or witness testimony that would establish that fact first hand. Such findings of fact are relatively frequent, especially when documents are scarce and witness testimony is self-serving. An inference refers thus to a conclusion that as a matter of plausibility a fact must be true in light of other relevant and probative record evidence as well as party conduct in the arbitral proceedings. Moreover, the plausibility of an inference is governed by the same standard of proof as the proof of the relevant fact by direct evidence.