Topic: Climate change

A divided ICSID tribunal has ordered Spain to pay almost €33 million to a Mexican billionaire’s company over cuts to the state’s renewable energy subsidy regime.

10 May 2022

Government action to stop global warming could trigger more than US$340 billion in claims from oil and gas investors, according to a new study calling for an “abolitionist approach” to investment treaties.

10 May 2022

Maguelonne de Brugiere, Helin Laufer and Luke Hard report on a Herbert Smith Freehills case study of the difference in the carbon footprint and costs of in-person and virtual hearings in international arbitrations, unsurprisingly finding that virtual hearings are significantly less carbon-intensive and cheaper.

12 April 2022

A new UN report that says action is needed “now or never” to avoid disastrous global warming has warned that investment agreements may be causing a “regulatory chill” delaying countries from phasing out fossil fuels.

08 April 2022

States’ obligations under the Energy Charter Treaty are potentially in conflict with those under international climate law, and arbitrators may have to integrate the two or decide that “one trumps the other”, according to a new study.

14 March 2022

The first GAR Connect Eastern Mediterranean saw speakers discuss dispute-related trends arising from offshore natural gas fields in the Mediterranean itself, in countries bordering the sea like Cyprus, Israel, Egypt, Libya and Turkey, and as far East as the Gulf and Russia.

10 March 2022

Meriam Nazih Al-Rashid, Kate Lomas and Angela Antoniou of Eversheds Sutherland report on a recently concluded Latin American regional treaty addressing environmental protections and the rights of environmental defenders, and providing for state-to-state arbitration over compliance with its terms.

15 February 2022

In a keynote lecture, Austrian arbitrator and academic Christoph Schreuer addressed the concept of the unity of an investment and its use in investor-state case law. Jaroslav Kudrna and Martin Nováček of the Czech Ministry of Finance report.        

13 January 2022

German energy group Uniper has asked an ICSID tribunal to restrain the Dutch government from pursuing anti-arbitration proceedings in the German courts.

07 December 2021

After the Biden administration was hit with a US$15 billion NAFTA claim by the owner of a cancelled cross-border pipeline project, the Canadian province of Alberta has confirmed it intends to bring its own investment arbitration against the US – which practitioners suggest could be the first case of its kind under the trade agreement.

26 November 2021