Introduction

Contracts between private parties and States and their instrumentalities - for the granting of concessions, privatizations, the engineering, procurement and construction of infrastructure, and the operation of public services, among many others purposes - typically contain dispute resolution clauses of some sort. Despite the presence of these clauses, recent years have seen an increase in claims relating to investor-state contracts in international arbitrations pursuant to bilateral investment treaties, or "BITs." These claims were initially alleged as breaches of ...