Research by Dr Martins Paparinskis cited by the Colombian Constitutional Court

Research by Dr Martins Paparinskis, Reader in Public International Law at UCL Faculty of Laws, was cited by the Colombian Constitutional Court in Judgment C-252/19 of 6 June 2019, made public last week (in Spanish).

Judgment C-252/19 is one of the most awaited Court’s judgments in 2019 and concerns a challenge of constitutionality of the 2014 Colombia-France Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) and its 2017 ratifying law. The Court had to consider the compatibility of the national treatment and most-favoured-nation treatment provisions in the BIT with the Colombian Constitution. It explained the structure and content of these provisions by reference to a chapter by Dr Paparinskis in CL Lim, J Ho, and M Paparinskis, International Investment Law and Arbitration: Commentary, Awards and other Materials (Cambridge University Press 2018) at [230], [239]. The Court also relied on the same chapter to make a general point about the relationship of non-discrimination rules in constitutional law and international investment law at [112]. (Elsewhere in the judgment, the Court cited a chapter from the same book by Professor Lim on fair and equitable treatment, at [192], [197], [211].)

Judgment C-252/19 is the second citation by a leading domestic court of Dr Paparinskis’ research from this book, following the Singapore Court of Appeal’s Swissbourgh Diamond Mines (Pty) Limited & Ors v Kingdom of Lesotho [2018] SGCA 81 judgement last November.