Cette thèse porte sur deux espaces juridiques différents : celui des droits de l’homme et celui des investissements étrangers. Le centre de gravité de notre recherche étant défini géographiquement en ...Amérique latine, le but est d’analyser l’articulation de ces deux espaces juridiques en identifiant et étudiant la circulation normative dans sa dimension horizontale, c'est-à-dire reposant sur le cadre normatif international. L’interaction entre le droit international des investissements et les droits de l’homme est une problématique récente, qui a commencé à attirer l’attention de la communauté internationale et a mis en évidence les avantages et les limites de leur articulation. En effet, les États sont tenus de protéger, respecter et garantir tous les droits de l’homme indépendamment des classifications dont ils font l’objet. Concomitamment, les Etats doivent aussi suivre les obligations relatives aux investissements étrangers déduites des accords en la matière. Le respect de ces deux types d’obligations peut opérer sans poser de problèmes de coordination, ou, au contraire, dans certaines hypothèses, une concurrence de ces deux types d’engagements peut apparaître. De ce fait, l’identification de leurs points de rencontre ainsi que de leurs points d’achoppement devra être menée pour atteindre l’objectif principal de notre analyse défini par l’articulation de ces deux domaines du droit international. La pratique témoigne des implications que les activités d’investissements ont de temps en temps vis-à-vis des droits de la personne, ce qui invite à analyser l’interaction entre ces deux régimes juridiques. C’est ainsi que quelques nouveaux modèles de traités d’investissements commencent à mentionner expressément la protection des droits de l’homme. De la même manière, l’arbitrage international est de plus en plus occupé par des questions concernant les points de rencontre et d’achoppement entre les deux régimes. Ainsi, la jurisprudence arbitrale traite la question, mais souvent de façon timide et hétérogène, et la plupart du temps par le biais d’interprétations privilégiant la protection des droits de l’investisseur sur toute autre question relevant des droits des différentes personnes affectées par l’investissement. La lecture de cette même situation dans l’enceinte contentieuse des droits de l’homme du système interaméricain est souvent divergente, car ceux-ci sont appliqués et interprétés en concordance avec des principes spécifiques et privilégiant l’essence humaniste qui distingue la matière. Ces divergences d’interprétation risquent de s’approfondir du fait de la spécificité des structures régionales participant à la création et au développement du droit international des investissements et des droits de l’homme. En Amérique latine, région reconnue pour ses contrastes, des approches régionales particulières se sont développées autour de la question du traitement et de la protection des étrangers par le biais des doctrines Calvo et Drago, ainsi que de l’interprétation régionale de plusieurs droits dans le cadre du système interaméricain de protection des droits de l’homme. Ces approches particulières ont bâti des traditions juridiques latino-américaines, dans les matières respectives, qui ont évolué dans le temps et se confrontent avec le cadre juridique international de l’investissement étranger. Cette situation de possible fragmentation juridique se nourrit de la création des nouveaux centres de décision et d’institutions régionaux comme l’UNASUR, l’ALBA et plus récemment la CELAC. De ce fait, elle nous invite à approfondir la question de l’articulation des régimes juridiques en l’étudiant sous le prisme de la tradition juridique latino-américaine.
This thesis addresses two different legal areas: Human Rights and foreign investment protection. The focal point of our research is Latin America, and the objective is to analyze the articulation of the above-mentioned legal areas, while identifying and studying the circulation of legal norms in their horizontal dimension, in other words, in the framework of international law. The interaction of foreign investment law and human rights is recent, and is a subject that has begun to attract the attention of the international community and to display the advantages and limits in their articulation In fact, States have to protect, respect and guarantee Human Rights, regardless of the classification they are subject to. At the same time, States must also comply with their obligations to protect foreign investment in their territories derived from international treaties that they are part of. Compliance with these two types of obligations can take place without implying any coordination problems, but in other cases, it could also cause these obligations to clash. We will aim to identify common points in both regimes, as well as conflict areas in order to determine the articulation between these two areas of international law. In fact, practice reflects the implications that investment activities sometimes have on human rights, and invites to analyze the interactions between these two regimes. This is how some new model agreements promoting and protecting foreign investment have begun to expressly refer the protection of human rights. In the same way, international arbitration has been increasingly dealing with questions concerning the common areas, as well as the diverging points of these two regimes. In effect, arbitral jurisprudence deals with this interaction, but often times in a timid and heterogeneous way, and in the majority of the cases biased by interpretations that privilege the rights of investors over any other question relative to rights of other persons affected by the investment. In light of human rights jurisprudence, this situation often receives a different understanding, due to the fact that human rights are interpreted and applied in accordance with specific principles, and placing greater importance on the humanistic essence that distinguishes the area. These differences in the interpretation may deepen, taking into account the specificity of regional structures that participate in the creation and development of international investment law and international human rights law. Concerning Latin America, bearing in mind the contrasts that depict the region, it has featured particular approaches with regard to the treatment of foreign investors, greatly influenced by the Calvo and Drago doctrines, as well as by regional interpretations within the framework of the Inter-American system of human rights. These interpretations have built Latin American legal traditions in the matter that have evolved over time, and can be evaluated against the international investment juridical framework. This landscape of possible legal fragmentation is nourished by the creations of new decision-making centers and regional institutions such as the UNASUR, ALBA, and more recently the CELAC. This question calls us to deepen the study of the articulation of these two legal regimes, under the prism of the Latin American legal tradition.
When matters of investment and international operations are intertwined with elements of taxation, thorny issues tend to present themselves at the practitioner’s doorstep. Investment arbitration is ...sufficiently complex by itself, as are international tax arbitration cases. The reciprocal impact and potential interactions between international investment arbitration and international taxation is a topic where one must humbly1 acknowledge that there will never be a hard drive large enough to store all solutions to all issues that might arise.2 It might be difficult even for the best practitioner to anticipate how the tax liability in relation to the damages awarded to a claimant by an investment tribunal will be treated by the jurisdictions involved, or how a tax administration will address the taxation of a given operation between multiple related entities. One should therefore be particularly careful in managing risk. On the other hand, investment tribunals have struggled to juggle maintaining equilibrium between the rights of claimants and respondents in various instances, including tax audits and indirect expropriation cases. It is striking, however, that only in the recent past has academia begun to recognize the importance of knowing the main aspects of and interplay between taxation and investment arbitration. Relevant sums of money are at stake when taxation issues are argued in investment cases, and there is much that the dispute settlement regimes of both specialties of law may benefit from considering the best practices adopted by the other. This chapter will focus first on providing an introduction to the most relevant issues that could arise in relation to tax and international investment, giving particular weight to investment protection standards. It will then turn to consider international tax dispute resolution, and thirdly how the particular characteristics of this latter regime may be helpful in the context of the international investment arena.
The last decade has witnessed an unprecedented increase in the use of investor-State arbitration, highlighting numerous shortcomings of the existing investor-State dispute settlement system. The ...legitimacy of the International Investment regime has been under severe criticism due to the growing discontent amongst the investors as well as the host States. The increased litigation has led to both the process and the outcome being questioned and has undermined the growth of harmonious relationships between foreign investors and host States. The object of this paper is to explore a workable roadmap for the investor-State dispute settlement mechanism by tracing the evolution of the existing system and by analysing the dispute settlement mechanism in major international investment agreements. Furthermore, it highlights the causes and the possible consequences of the denunciation of Bilateral Investment Treaties ('BITs') and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes ('ICSID') by host nations, which have been plagued by a myriad of investment suits. The authors suggest the need for doing away with highly protective investor-State dispute settlement mechanisms ('ISDSMs') in future investment agreements and recommend the need for designing an appellate mechanism for bringing consistency and predictability to the system.
Predmet istraživanja je analiza primjene standarda pune zaštite i sigurnosti stranih investicija u međunarodnoj aribtražnoj praksi. Riječ je o apsolutnom standardu koji sadrže gotovo svi međunarodni ...investicijski ugovori te koji se etablirao kroz arbitražnu praksu i to bez obzira na različitost jezičnih izričaja kojima se označava u investicijskim ugovorima. Objekti zaštite prema ovom standardu mogu biti i investitori i investicije, a njime se uspostavlja dvostruka obveza za države; s jedne strane to je obveza aktivnog djelovanja na sprečavanju i saniranju povrede ili kažnjavanju počinitelja, a s druge strane to je obveza suzdržavanja od poduzimanja bilo kakvih aktivnosti kojima bi se povrijedila strana investicija. Ovaj rad se posebice bavio trima pitanjima koja su odlučujuća za njegovu primjenu u praksi. Prvo je pitanje odnosa ovog standarda prema drugim standardima zaštite, posebice standardu pravičnog i poštenog tre- tmana kao i prema minimalnom standardu zaštite koju uživaju strani investitori i njihove in- vesticije prema međunarodnom običajnom pravu. Drugo je pitanje sadržaja standarda: odnosi li se standard samo na fizičku zaštitu i sigurnost ili uključuje i širu, pravnu zaštitu i regulator- nu zaštitu, sigurnost i stabilnost. Treće pitanje se odnosi na stupanj zaštite i sigurnosti, od- nosno podrazumijeva li ovaj standard objektivnu odgovornost države domaćina ili ona mora postupati s dužnom pažnjom, dakle ovisno o okolnostima svakog slučaja. U radu se analiziraju sve javno dostupne odluke međunarodnih arbitražnih sudova kao i znanstvena literatura koja se bavi ovim standardom te se ukazuje na prevladavajuće stavove o ova tri ključna pitanja te na njihove implikacije na zaštitu stranih investicija.
This chapter discusses the role of human rights in international investment arbitration, focusing on issues such as jurisdiction, applicable law, and invocation of human rights during proceedings. It ...highlights certain similarities among human rights law and investment law, e.g. regarding substantive norms such as prohibition of discrimination and protection of property, that are common to both investment and human rights law. It also describes how human rights and investment law differ dramatically. The chapter points out that the role of human rights in investment arbitration is likely to increase; yet, it remains controversial whether the arbitral system is the best suited for dealing with breaches of human rights, for example in view of the lack of transparency and legitimacy of confidential arbitration proceedings without adequate legal safeguards for third parties and general citizen interests that may be adversely affected by investment disputes.
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