A group of German and Spanish companies with interests in Europe’s largest solar power plant have filed a claim against Spain at ICSID under the terms of the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT). The case is ICSID’s first new filing of 2015, but hardly the first such challenge for the Spanish government. Spain is already the […]
Institute for Policy Studies fellow blasts investor-state arbitration in New York Times op-ed
In a recent op-ed for the New York Times, Manuel Perez-Rocha, an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, argues that prevailing mechanisms for the resolution of state-investor disputes are rigged against states. Arbitration mechanisms are particularly detrimental to poorer states, according to Perez-Rocha. Focusing on the arbitration currently under way between El Salvador […]
El Salvador and mineral firm in final stages of ICSID arbitration
The International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) is currently in the final stages of arbitrating a dispute between the government of El Salvador and Pacific Rim LLC, a gold mining company recently acquired by Australian mining firm OceanaGold. The ICSID proceedings began in 2009, when Pacific Rim claimed El Salvador unlawfully denied […]
Reko Diq: all over but the arbitration
Earlier this month, Tethyan Copper Company (TCC)—the Antofagasta-Barrick joint venture company formed to explore and mine the Reko Diq area in Pakistan’s Balochistan Province—announced that it was no longer seeking a mining license, and would only pursue financial reparations in its ongoing arbitration processes. The company’s original goal in these arbitrations was to compel Pakistan’s […]