The European Commission said on Friday 16 December that it had been encouraged by the initial international exploratory discussions on proposals tabled by the EU and Canada on a multilateral mechanism for resolving investment disputes.
With 200 delegates from more than 60 countries and eight international trade and investment organisations, the “very positive” attendance at the meeting jointly organised by the Commission and the Canadian government in Geneva on 13 and 14 December proved that there is “an appetite” for reforming the current system of investor-state dispute settlement and “significant interest” in the idea of establishing a permanent multilateral investment dispute settlement mechanism, the Commission said in a press release.
“Delegations contributed to frank and honest discussions by exchanging views on the rationale of the project and on key technical aspects based on their individual experiences and circumstances. The numerous questions that were raised confirm that further in-depth exploratory discussions will be necessary and useful in order to advance this important project”, it added.
European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström and Canada’s International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland will make the political case for this initiative to their counterparts attending the World Economic Forum in Davos on 20 January 2017.
The ultimate goal of the European-Canadian proposal is to create a single permanent body responsible for ruling on investment disputes moving away from the ad hoc system of dispute settlement between states and investors, ISDS, currently included in 3,200 bilateral investment treaties across the world, 1,400 of which concern the member states of the EU.
The proposal is based on a new model promoted by the EU to resolve differences between investors and states, the investment court system (ICS) proposed by the Commission in September 2015 (see EUROPE 11390), provided for in the free-trade agreements concluded by the EU with Canada (CETA), Singapore and Vietnam, and proposed by the EU in the framework of all free-trade or investment agreements it is negotiating with third countries. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)