Multilateral Investment Court – a Cure for Investor-State Disputes Under Extra-EU International Investment Agreements?

Abstract

Both branches of international economic law – international investment and trade law are currently in crisis. Many reforms have been proposed to cure the shortcomings of their dispute resolution mechanisms. Distinctive though they are, it seems that the newest EU’s proposal to establish the Multilateral Investment Court is heavily inspired by the dispute settlement system which exists in the World Trade Organization. The new system has been introduced to replace the investor-State dispute settlement mechanism existing in most investment treaties. In this article, the author assesses the objectives of the reform through the prism of successes and failures of the WTO dispute settlement system.