Abstract

What good is a victory on paper if it cannot be enforced in practice? For an investor, an unenforceable award is often no better than no award at all. ICSID awards are meant to be final, binding, and self-contained, yet at the execution stage, these attributes begin to erode, permitting states to raise the defense of immunity and avoid pecuniary obligations of the award despite consenting to arbitration. The article systematically addresses the problem of execution in the context of the United States, where Article 55 of ICSID is weaponized to shield state assets. The article ...