Introduction

The international arbitration provision (Article 26) of the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) is considered to be one of the "four pillars" of the Treaty. The ECT provides for three different principal regimes of dispute settlement: (1) investor-to-State arbitration (Article 26), (2) State-to-State arbitration (Article 27), and (3) GATT-like dispute settlement mechanism for trade disputes. The reason why we are concerned here only with the first type is that its adoption in a prospective regional energy charter in the Asia-Pacific will be problematic given the ...