Abuse of Process: An Impossible Dialogue Between ICJ and ICSID Tribunals?

Abstract

Abstract In the backdrop of the proliferation of international courts, the abuse of process revealed its protean nature. Still a foreigner in the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ or the Court) jurisprudence, in investment treaty arbitration it has been shaped in different ways to face multiple forms of the improper use of judicial system. Recently, the cases Immunities and Criminal Proceedings and Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination have offered two precious occasions of dialogue between ICJ and the tribunals established under the auspices of the International Centre for the Settlement of Investments Disputes (ICSID). Once compared the arguments made on the matter of abuse of procedure in the cases at hand with ICSID case law on treaty shopping and parallel proceedings, the scope of the present contribution will be to understand whether the abuse of process can really become the protagonist of a fruitful interaction between judicial organs.