Abstract

In spite of the fact that consent is the main building block of arbitration, arbitral awards have been steady for some years that a claimant need not have a contractual relationship with a respondent state to initiate arbitral proceedings versus this state, i.e. states unexpectedly were made respondents in arbitrations under arbitration clauses they have never approved or even bargained. The main reason for this arbitral attitude is the extraordinary proliferation of multilateral and bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and national investment laws promoting the ...