On 20 May 2026, an arbitral tribunal (the “Tribunal”) constituted under the 1976 UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules (the “UNCITRAL Rules”) issued its Final Award (the “Award”) in Abdallah Andraous v. Kingdom of the Netherlands, ICSID Case No. UNCT/23/3. The arbitration was brought by Mr Abdallah Andraous (the “Claimant”) against the Kingdom of the Netherlands (the “Respondent”) […]
Legacy Vulcan, LLC v. United Mexican States: Regulatory Arbitrariness and the Limits of Investment Treaty Compensation
On 27 July 2026, an arbitral tribunal (the “Tribunal”) in proceedings before the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (“ICSID”) issued its award (the “Award”) in the dispute between Legacy Vulcan, LLC (“Legacy Vulcan”) and the United Mexican States (“Mexico”). The Tribunal found that Mexico had denied fair and equitable treatment (“FET”) under Article […]
Investment Arbitration: The Case Against a Standing Investment Court
A standing investment court is a permanent tribunal currently being conceived by States to decide investor-State disputes. Its members would be appointed in advance, and cases would be assigned to them from a fixed bench. The concern is that this could concentrate decision-making power in a small group of State-appointed judges while reducing the parties’ […]
Jurisdiction Ratione Temporis: When Does Treaty Protection Apply?
An investment treaty does not confer jurisdiction over every dispute merely because arbitration is commenced while the treaty is in force. Jurisdiction ratione temporis in investment treaty arbitration determines whether the challenged State conduct and, where the treaty so provides, the dispute itself fall within the treaty’s temporal scope. Temporal issues commonly arise, for instance, […]
Moral Damages in Investor-State Arbitration after Emergofin
In Emergofin B.V. and Velbay Holdings Ltd. v. Ukraine, the Tribunal rejected the claim for moral damages from the outset. It did not treat moral damages as only a question of evidence or valuation; the Tribunal went further and held that the claim fell outside its jurisdiction or, alternatively, was inadmissible.[1] The Award incorporates the […]