Governments around the world are facing complex and pressing issues relating to their international investment treaties. Investor-state arbitrations based on those treaties are on the rise, involving ever-more novel and wide-ranging claims, and often claiming staggering sums in damages. Negotiations of new treaties continue, with many of these agreements being unprecedented in terms of the issues they seek to cover and the complexity of their provisions. States are also facing significant questions about what to do with their stocks of existing investment treaties, many of which no longer reflect the states’ treaty policies and practices, their development objectives, or their human rights or environmental obligations.
Against that background, there is an important need for officials in all branches and at all levels of government to learn about and stay up to date on new developments in investment treaty practice, and investment governance more generally, and understand what those developments mean for them in their respective roles. This program aims to fill that need, and is aimed specifically at addressing states’ objectives, opportunities and challenges facing governments in treaty reform, and other approaches to investment governance, including dispute prevention and alternatives to ISDS.
Through this virtual program, government officials will increase their knowledge of the international investment law and policy landscape, better equipping them to deal with this complex and ever-evolving field with wide ranging implications for myriad areas of law and policy, and direct consequences for host-state liability.