Non-Precluded Measures (NPM) in Bilateral investment Treaty (BIT)
(An appraisal study)
الملخص
Non-precluded measures (hereinafter NPM) clauses have become a problematic in the modern international investment regime. As an integral aspect of attempts to recalibrate the publicprivate balance in investment treaties, these clauses are intended as a corrective to the proinvestor interpretations of early arbitral tribunals. They provide for the primacy of public policy over investment protection standards under certain conditions. This paper attempts to identify the proper way in the drafting of NPM clauses and identify their common elements. It will examine the terms that must be met in order that host states can have resort to them, as well as the role that is provided or denied to arbitrators in circumscribing the suitability of an impugned measure in relation to the objective being pursued. Furthermore, recent investment arbitrations have pointed out the latent interpretive ambiguities that can be in NPM clauses. In fact, it will be argued that while NPM clauses do raise some difficulties with respect to extending the policy space of contracting parties, they are slightly effective in ensuring that public policy is a permanent feature of arbitrators’ matrix of decisionmaking.
المراجع
2. ICSID Case No.ARB/01/8; Enron Creditors Recovery Corp. Ponderosa Assets. LP v Argentine Republic, (30 July 2010) Decision on Annulment, ICSID Case No.ARB/01/3 [Enron Annulment]; Sempra Energy Int’l v Argentine Republic, (29 June 2010) Decision on Annulment, para36.
3. S.R. Subramanian, “Too Similar or Too Different: State of Necessity as a Defense under Customary International Law and the Bilateral Investment Treaty and their Relationship”, (2012) 9 (1) Manchester Journal of International Economic Law, 68, para 133.
4. Case Concerning Oil Platforms (Islamic Republic of Iran v. United States), Judgement, (6 November 2003) Judgement, ICJ, at 196, para 73 [Oil Platforms], available online at: http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/90/9715.pdf (last visited 19 Feb 2021).
5. CMS Gas Transmission Co v The Argentine Republic, (25 September 2007) Annulment Decision, ICSID Case No.ARB/01/8.
6. ILC, Report of the Study Group of the International Law Commission, Fragmentation of International Law: Difficulties Arising from the Diversification and Expansion of International Law (4 April 2006), Doc. A/CN.4/L.682 [ILC Fragmentation Report], online at: http://legal.un.org/ilc/documentation/english/a_cn4_l682.pdf (last visited 25 Feb 2021).
7. CMS Annulment, supra (note 37), para 132.
8. William W. Burke-White, “The Argentine Financial Crisis: State Liability under BITs and the Legitimacy of
9. ICSID System”, (2008) 3 Asian Journal of WTO and International Health Law and Policy 199, 206.
10. U.S.-Argentina BIT (1994), Article II, signed 14 November 1991; entered into force 20 October 1994. Available online: http://investmentpolicyhub.unctad.org/Download/TreatyFile/127.
11. Lebanon-Belgium-Luxemburg BIT (1999) Article 3(3).
12. Sri-Lanka-China BIT (1986) Article 11.
13. Germany-Bangladesh BIT (1981) Protocol 2 (a).
14. India-China BIT (2006), Article 14.
15. Finland-India BIT (2002) Article 12(2).
16. Protocol to China-Germany BIT (2003), section 4.
17. The scope of NPM clauses can also be limited to other treaty provisions such as expropriation or nationalization.
18. (Belgian-Luxemburg-China BIT).
19. Uganda - Belgium-Luxembourg BIT (2005), Article 3(2).
20. Barnali Choudhury, "Exception Provisions as a Gateway to Incorporating Human Rights Issues into International Investment Agreements", (2010-11) 49 Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 670, 688.
21. Article XI, the U.S.-Argentina BIT (1994).
الحقوق الفكرية (c) 2022 Abd Almohsen Alajmy
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