Introduction

The sudden burst in the activity of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in 1997, mainly as a result of the proliferation of arbitrations initiated on the basis of bilateral or multilateral treaties for the promotion and protection of international investments, has not been belied in subsequent years. To the contrary, ICSID's caseload has been in constant increase every year. In 2006, the ICSID Secretariat registered 23 new arbitrations, a movement which, although in slight decrease as compared to the number of new cases registered in ...