Preface

Abstract

When we began the exercise of planning the focus of the special issues that would appropriately mark the thirtieth anniversary of the ICSID Review and the fiftieth jubilee of the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), it was at once clear that one such topic had to be the intersection of investment arbitration and public international law. International law may not be the only relevant legal system applicable in ICSID arbitration. Party autonomy and host State law also play important roles. But the framers of the ICSID Convention recognized from the outset a distinctive place for public international law within the arbitration system that they created. The explosive growth in recent years of investment arbitration pursuant to treaty has served to focus unprecedented attention on the diverse ways in which these specialized treaty regimes intersect with general public international law. Determining the precise contours of that intersection has not always been easy. Indeed, arbitrators and scholars have sometimes differed profoundly as to the influence to be accorded to doctrines of general international law in investment disputes. Nevertheless, the simple fact that investment treaties are themselves creatures of international law provides an important point of departure that makes the task of charting the relationship between the special and the general inescapable. No overarching issue of applicable law could be more fitting for a broad-ranging reassessment at the 30-year mark. It is therefore a particular delight that 11 distinguished scholars and practitioners have accepted our invitation to contribute articles to the present issue that critically examine and appraise the role of general public international law within investment arbitration. The articles explore five aspects of the larger