Introduction

With a judgement of 20 April 2016 the Hague District Court reversed the awards of 18 July 2014 given by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in the so-called "Yukos cases" on the grounds that the arbitral tribunal lacked jurisdiction in these cases. The key issue in the decision of the Hague District Court was the fact that the Russian Federation had signed the Energy Charter Treaty ("ECT") on 17 December 1994, but never ratified it. Instead, it applied the ECT provisionally in accordance with Article 45 of the ECT. The Hague District Court found that ...