Fourth Investment Arbitration Debate
On 11 October, the eve of the meeting of the UNCITRAL Working Group III on ISDS reform, Dr. Moritz Keller (Clifford Chance, Frankfurt) and Prof. Dr. August Reinisch (University of Vienna) hosted the fourth Vienna Investment Arbitration Debate at the Juridicum. As in previous years, the panelists, Prof. Dr. Marc Bungenberg (University of Saarbrücken), Prof. Nassib Ziadé (Bahrain Chamber for Dispute Resolution), Prof. Irmgard Marboe (University of Vienna) and Liz Snodgrass (Three Crowns, Washington), were assigned a position regardless of their actual opinion. This year's debate focussed on a number of current issues: Is there a need for more coherence in investment arbitration and thus a need for ISDS reform? How will ISDS reform affect the substantive standards of treatment, in particular the standard of fair and equitable treatment? What are the implications of the recent decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union, Opinion 1/17 and the Achmea judgment, for the future of investor-state arbitration within and outside the EU? The Vienna Investment Arbitration Debate ended with a keynote speech by Prof. Dr. Hans van Houtte, former President of the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal.
