Hybrid | Impartiality and the Construction of Trust in Investor State Dispute Settlement

This lecture will be delivered by Professor Stavros Brekoulakis, as part of the Current Legal Problems Lecture Series 2023-24

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Hybrid | Impartiality and the Construction of Trust in Investor State Dispute Settlement

01 Feb 2024, 13:00 – 14:00

UCL Faculty of Laws
United Kingdom

Speaker: Professor Stavros Brekoulakis (Queen Mary University of London)
Chair: Professor Sir Bernard Rix (Twenty Essex)

About the lecture

Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) is a justice system that allows investors to bring disputes against states before international arbitration tribunals which are established on an ad hoc basis and are paid by the parties. ISDS is currently included in thousands of international trade and investment agreements as the default system of resolving disputes between states and investors. ISDS is also the subject of extensive criticism. A large part of this criticism stems from claims that ISDS lacks impartiality and is often perceived as being structurally biased in favour of investors and against states with attention being focused on various reform options. However, absent from the debate and reform proposals is the fundamental question issue of what is being assessed in the first place. What is the idea of impartiality against which ISDS is assessed.

Drawing on the findings of a large-scale empirical project, the Lecture will question the applicability of an orthodox judicial idea of impartiality in ISDS. As the Lecture will argue, a judicial doctrine of impartiality does not reconcile with the fundamental value of trust in ISDS arbitrators which is constructed on a fundamentally different basis from that of trust in national and international judges.

The Lecture will call for a new, and contextualised, understanding of impartiality which better corresponds to the value of trust in ISDS. As the Lecture will explain, within this nuanced understanding certain forms of partiality can and should be compatible in ISDS decision making.

Stavros Brekoulakis is a Professor of International Arbitration at Queen Mary University of London; from February 2024, Brekoulakis will start his tenure as the Michael and Laura Hwang Chair of International Arbitration at the National University of Singapore. Stavros also practices as an arbitrator at a leading commercial Chambers 3 Verulam Buildings (Gray’s Inn) having been appointed as arbitrator in more than 80 commercial and investment arbitrations.

Stavros is the author of eight monographs, books and edited volumes and more than 30 articles in leading peer-reviewed law journals. He has been invited to deliver the Summer Course on Private International Law at the Hague Academy of International Law in 2026.

Stavros has led important policy projects and advised governmental, intergovernmental, and non-governmental organisations. He has previously been the Co-Chair of the International Council of Commercial Arbitration Task Force on Third Party Funding; a member of the London Bar Reform Committee; a member of the Steering Committee of the UNCITRAL Academic Forum on Investor-State Dispute Settlement; a member of the Investment Expert Trade Advisory Group of the UK Department for International Trade. He is currently a member of the Governing body of the International Council of Commercial Arbitration; the Governing Court of the London Court of International Arbitration; the International Chamber of Commerce Commission on Arbitration.

He is the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Arbitration, Mediation and Dispute Management; the General Editor of the Journal of International Dispute Settlement; the Co-editor of Kluwer’s International Arbitration Law Library Series; and a member of the Editorial Board of the Arbitration International.

The Current Legal Problems (CLP) lecture series and annual volume was established over fifty five years ago at the Faculty of Laws, University College London and is recognised as a major reference point for legal scholarship.

You can attend this event in-person at UCL Faculty of Laws (Bentham House, 4-8 Endsleigh Gardens, London WC1H 0EG) or alternatively you can join via a live stream.

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