The Nexus between Human Rights and International Investment Arbitration: Examining the Weiler’s Concept of Lost Siblings

Abstract

International investment arbitration has elicited so much attention in recent times. International organisations, such as the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law and the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes, have been assiduously engaged in programmes toward reforming investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), of which international investment arbitration is a subset. While the ISDS system has evolved with adequate protection for investors, the experience of host states and their citizens has been that of misgivings about the system’s usefulness. These misgivings have resulted in agitations for the reform of the system. One cardinal aspect of the reform agenda, and the focus of this paper, is the need for international investment arbitration tribunals to give adequate consideration to human rights norms in ISDS cases. This paper adopts the doctrinal research methodology for examining the relationship between human rights and international investment arbitration. The work concluded that there is a need for international investment arbitration tribunals to strike a balance between investors’ bilateral investment treaty (BIT) rights and their human rights obligations.