January 2020 – Young ICCA

Highlights from the 2019 Rules of the Milan Chamber of Arbitration

By Gustavo Minervini, LL.M., Ph.D.

On 1 March 2019 the Milan Chamber of Arbitration issued its amended Arbitration Rules (the “2019 Rules’”) with the aim of improving “the efficiency and the rapidity of arbitral proceedings [while] ensuring the necessary guarantees.” This objective follows the current international trend. Indeed, in the last decade, several arbitral institutions have revised their rules in order to guarantee that arbitrations are conducted in an expeditious and cost-effective manner, without sacrificing fairness and reliability.

The Role of Precedent in ISDS: Can Decisional Law Contribute to the Creation of Customary Norms?

By Rebecca Meyer

ISDS is a fragmented field, consisting of a few thousand bilateral investment treaties (“BITs”) and treaties with investment chapters – such as the Energy Charter Treaty (“ECT”) or the North American Free Trade Agreement (“NAFTA”). These instruments that regulate foreign investment are often similar but are not the same. Yet, even where different bilateral relationships are governed by technically distinct obligations, there is often a level of consistency among ISDS decisions. This coherence results from the precedent-like reliance on earlier ISDS decisions.