Abstract

Climate change, potentially the greatest threat of the 21st century to human societies, transcends political and legal boundaries. However, the operation of investor-state dispute resolution (ISDS) and its governing instruments has been intrinsically linked to those boundaries, boundaries that are a decisive factor in conferring consent to dispute resolution. In particular, the jurisdictional inquiry of territoriality, essentially a ratione loci, limits the application of treaty obligations to investments in the defined territory of a host state. Seemingly straightforward, a mixture of ...