Just before the Second Wave of Covid19 in India, we started off a lecture series introducing international investment law. As was stated in a previous post in this blog, the objective of the lecture series was to cover the fundamentals of International Investment Law and making the subject more accessible through short lectures (approximately 8 to 10 minutes). The lecture series is not restricted to any particular jurisdiction, although many of the examples provided relate to India. Overview of the first fifteen lectures is contained in this post. This post covers lectures 16 to 30.
Chapter 3: Substantive Standards of Protection I
Lecture 15: Fair & Equitable Treatment: An Introduction
In this lecture, we discuss one of the most widely used substantial protections under international investment law, that is, Fair and Equitable Treatment, or FET. We also deal with the FET clause in the India-UAE BIT, 2013 and the Brazil India BIT, 2020
Lecture 16: Fair & Equitable Treatment: Preliminary Aspects
This lecture deals with certain preliminary aspects of the FET standard, including its brief history and its nature and function.
Lecture 17: More on Fair and Equitable Standards
This lecture addresses issues such as whether FET standard is a part of customary international law relating to minimum standard of treatment and the evolution of FET standard
Lecture 18: India and the FET Standard
This lecture looks at India’s skirmishes with the FET standard in the White Industries Award and the Cairn BIT Award. Note that the purpose of this lecture series is to introduce readers to the subject and therefore, this lecture does not critically examines the Award insofar as the FET standard is concerned but would only provide a descriptive comment.
This lecture introduces the full protection and security standard. It talks about how the standard finds its place in certain Indian BITs and about the first case in BIT history, which pertained to this standard.
Lecture 20: More on Full Protection and Security Standard
Lecture 20 discusses the scope of the FPSS and provides an overview of its features.
This lecture concerns the application of the Full Protection and Security standard in the Louis Dreyfus Armateurs SAS (France) v. India arbitration, which India successfully defended.
Lecture 22: Non-Impairment Standard: An Introduction
Lecture 22 discusses Non-impairment standard, which is another substantive protection in investment treaties. The lecture discusses the non-impairment.
Lecture 23: More on the Non-Impairment Standard
Lecture 23 discusses the measures that can constitute a violation of the non-impairment standard. The cases of EDF (Services) Limited v. Romania, ELSI Elettronica Sicula SpA, Siemens v. Argentina, LG&E Energy Corp v. Argentina have also been discussed.
Lecture 24: The Umbrella Clause
This lecture discusses the meaning, evolution, and variants of the Umbrella clause.
Lecture 25: More on the Umbrella Clause
This lecture discusses the case of SGS v Pakistan insofar as it relates to the Umbrella clause.
Lecture 26: Approaches to the Umbrella Clause
Umbrella clause has not received a uniform interpretation. Different tribunals, including the one in SGS v. Pakistan, have construed the clause differently.
Lecture 27: Nissan v India and the Umbrella Clause
This lecture discusses the recent case of Nissan v. India which relates to the Umbrella clause.
Chapter IV: Substantive Standards of Protection II
Lecture 28: Most Favoured Nation Standard
In this lecture, we discuss the Most Favoured Nation or the MFN standard.
Lecture 29: More on the MFN Standard
In this lecture, we cover the issues of exceptions to MFN standard and the temporal scope of the standard.
Lecture 30: MFN & Procedural Rules
In this lecture, we deal with an interesting topic under MFN-extension of MFN to procedural rules. The MFN standard has been construed to extend even to procedural provisions such as dispute resolution although MFN in itself is a substantive standard.
