Recently, in a decision issued by the Court of Justice of the European Union, in the case of Slovak Republic v. Achmea, intra-EU bilateral investment treaties’ (“BIT”) arbitration clauses were declared to be in violation of governing European Union (“EU”) law and therefore illegal. The court stated “that the arbitration clause in the BIT [between Slovakia and the…
Category: Investment Treaty
India-Brazil BIT: A Step in the Right Direction
On January 26, 2020, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was the chief guest during India’s 71st Republic Day Parade. Later that week a strategic partnership was formed between the countries as India signed a bilateral investment treaty (BIT) with Brazil to further develop relations between the two states on both a cultural and commercial level. Recently,…
An Overview of the EU-Singapore Free Trade Agreement
The European Union-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (EUSFTA), a bilaterally beneficial trade agreement, was finally implemented on November 20, 2019, after ten years of negotiations. Talks began in 2009, with the Good and Services negotiations and investment protection negotiations ending in 2012 and 2014, respectively. EUSFTA was signed in October 2018, and approved by the European…
The Achmea Judgment and its Repercussions
On January 15, 2019, a group of distinguished arbitrators, practitioners, and academics got together at American University Washington College of Law to discuss the most important decisions involving States in 2018. While the event consisted of two panels — one on disputes between States and the other on investor-State disputes — there was a decision…
Chinese Africa Joint Arbitration Center: A Solution to Trade Disputes between Africa and China
The increasing trade and investment cooperation between China and Africa, as well as the diversity of individual legal systems across African countries, create a growing need for neutral and cost-effective mechanisms for resolving commercial disputes between African and Chinese parties. These factors prompted the establishment of the Chinese Africa Joint Arbitration Center (CAJAC), which aims…
The Arbitration Brief 