Conoco phillips v Venezuela and gold reserve v Venezuela expropriation: a new focus on old issues

dolzer, rudolf;

Rules on expropriation have long formed the core of the field of international investment law, but have not been in the centre of arbitral practice and scholarly debate in the past decade. Several developments may explain this loss of prominence. First, cases of outright expropriations have become rare after the 1990s, in a climate
with an international focus on the beneficial effects of foreign investment. Highprofile nationalizations in Latin America are an exception to this overall trend. Second, counsel and tribunals have tended to focus less on rules of expropriation and more on the scope of rules on fair and equitable treatment (FET) in cases of host State interference with foreign investment below the threshold of a formal taking.