Investment treaty arbitration �down under�: policy and politics in Australia

kurtz, jurgen; nottage, luke;

Disaffection regarding treaty-based investor�State dispute settlement (ISDS), especially binding arbitration, is slowly spreading from a few, mostly leftist regimes in South America, to middle-income and developed countries in other parts of the world. In particular, now that the European Union (EU) has exclusive competence to conclude treaties relating to foreign direct investment (FDI), tension has emerged between the European Commission and the European Parliament, particularly in the context of the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), given the potential economic impact of such a free trade agreement (FTA) still being negotiated between the EU and the USA. However, there has also been some debate over the advisability of having included ISDS in the FTAs recently concluded with Canada6 and even Singapore.