International Trade and Investment Dispute Settlement: From Rise to Crisis and Reform

This book provides a thorough comparative analysis of the trade dispute settlement system of the WTO, Regional Trade Agreements, and of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS).

Reviewing in parallel their origins, features, development, and current challenges, highlighting commonalities and differences, the book analyzes criticisms leveled against both regimes, explores current reform efforts at the WTO, ICSID, and UNCITRAL (including the controversial proposal to replace ISDS with a Multilateral Investment Court), and engages in the on-going debate by evaluating possible outcomes. As to trade, the book highlights the WTO system’s successful operation for more than 20 years and its hobbling functioning since the paralysis of the Appellate Body in 2019. As to ISDS, the book details the procedural protection granted to foreign investors under Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs), other International Investment Agreements and investment chapters of trade agreements such as NAFTA, USMCA, CETA, and the CPTPP, alongside the impact of case law on the regulatory space of states.

This authoritative book intends to serve as a fundamental reference for students and researchers in international investment and trade law, as well as for international lawyers, adjudicators, and diplomats involved in dispute settlement.

Giorgio Sacerdoti is emeritus professor at Bocconi University in Milan, Italy, where he has taught international law for more than 30 years focusing his teaching, research and publications on international trade and investment law, economic cooperation and organizations, arbitration. He has been a member of the WTO Appellate Body (2001-2009) and its chairman (2006-2007). He is admitted to the Bar in Milan and has decades-long experience as an arbitrator in international trade, investment and commercial disputes, at ICSID, of whose roster he is a member, under the rules of a number of other arbitral institutions, and in ad hoc proceedings.

Niall Moran is a tenured Assistant Professor in Economic Law at Dublin City University, Ireland, where he is also Deputy Director of the Brexit Institute. He holds a PhD in International Economic Law from Bocconi University in Milan, Italy, and is also a law graduate of the University of Galway, and Université Toulouse 1 Capitole. Niall is a qualified barrister in Ireland and has been admitted as an Attorney in the State of New York. He previously worked for the Legal Service of the Council of the European Union and the Bilateral Relations with the Americas Unit at DG AGRI, European Commission.