Report of the 4th EFILA Annual Conference 2019

Abstract

On 31 January 2019, Herbert Smith Freehills kindly hosted in London the 4th EFILA Annual Conference on the “European Union (EU) and the future of International Investment Law and Arbitration”. The EU’s external investment policy and its investment policy towards Asia featured as the topics of the first two panels, which were followed by a keynote speech on the construction of a Multilateral Investment Court (MIC). The conference’s last panel dealt with the EU’s energy investment policy. This report presents the most relevant developments behind the EU’s external investment policy until the end of January 2019, its implementation towards Asia and influence in new global trends in investor-State dispute settlement. Further, it confronts the arguments of followers and detractors of the idea of a permanent standing two-tier mechanism with full-time adjudicators, which is promoted by the EU as the only option that can successfully respond to all the problems and challenges of the current ad hoc system. Finally, it conveys both the EU’ and investors’ needs in the construction of new carbon-friendly infrastructure and their enquiries into the modernisation process of the Energy Charter Treaty.