The Need to Re-visit Ethiopia's Bilateral Investment Treaties with Particular Emphasis on Investment Dispute Settlement
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2015-10
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Dispute settlement provisions contained in International Investment Agreements have been a headache for rnany
developing countries. The main source of the problem emanates from interpretation of some core substantive
and procedural standards contained in such agreements by different arbitral tribunals in a very inconsistent
manner.
Such inconsistent interpretations have resulted in locking down host states from making regulatory policy
reforms that are deemed necessary for the welfare of their citizens. In this context, some countries have started
to re-visit their Bilateral Investment Agreements with an aim to re-calibrate or even do away with them
completely.
The central thesis of this paper is, therefore, that substantive and procedural standard provisions found in BITs
as interpreted and applied by different ad hoc arbitral tribunals do indeed have tremendous effect on the
regulation of investment domestically and eventually stifle sovereign states from issuing regulatory policy
reforms and are thus bottlenecks to development. It argues that Ethiopia should re-think its current BIT regimes
and negotiate better ones; totally quitting from BIT regimes like South Africa is, however, not advisable as it
would signal a wrong message.
Description
Keywords
Investment Dispute Settlement