Icsid’s Neoliberal Approach to Environmental Regulation in Developing Countries

Abstract

Abstract With the intensification of their participation in the foreign investment regime, Latin American States are finding it difficult to implement measures beneficial to protecting their environments due to their obligations to third States. This governance deficit is further compounded by the regime’s neoliberal predisposition in favour of property protection, which has penetrated the system and implicated the system of investment treaty arbitration, the regime’s primary dispute settlement mechanism. The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (icsid) has also been implicated. This is seen in the momentous diversity in investor-State disputes resolved by various icsid tribunals, which concern attempts by Latin American States to protect their physical environments such as the protection of wildlife or other matters such as the regulation of hazardous waste landfills and ensuring that citizens have access to clean water. Tribunals have approached such disputes primarily from a commercial standpoint, ignoring non-market alternatives such as environmental considerations.