Investment Disputes under NAFTA: an Annotated Guide to NAFTA Chapter 11 by Meg N Kinnear, Andrea K Bjorklund, and John F.G Hannaford

Abstract

The investment chapter of the North American Free Trade Agreement is and remains one of the most influential instruments in investment law. It is the bedrock of the new models of Canadian and US free trade agreements and bilateral investment treaties, models that have already given birth to agreements with over a dozen countries. It is, with a few notable exceptions, encyclopedic in the sense that it contains a version of almost every form of provision found in investment treaties today. And, perhaps most important, the NAFTA’s investment chapter has given rise to a considerable and influential body of jurisprudence. More arbitral decisions under the NAFTA exist than is the case for any other single investment agreement today. For all of these reasons, Investment Disputes under NAFTA Chapter 11 is a superb reference tool for any serious practitioner of international investment arbitration. It is a reference par excellence for arbitrations under NAFTA’s investment chapter. However, it is also useful for almost any problem involving interpretation of the text of an investment treaty (and the vast majority of legal issues in investment treaty arbitrations involve such problems). Counsel addressing a national treatment claim under an investment treaty between a European and an Asian country, for example, can refer to the chapter addressing the NAFTA’s national treatment provision, Article 1102, and within moments have a sophisticated understanding of how national treatment provisions work, what problems have confronted tribunals in their application and the holdings of a number of the principal precedents in the area.