The Corporate Duty to Contribute to Sustainable Development from the Perspective of Investment Arbitration

Abstract

International investment law is a law field known for granting a wide array of legal rotection to private companies. Traditionally, the latter have had very few obligations vis-à-vis their host States. The abundant case law, which originates from arbitral tribunals, have thus mostly focused on construing and developing the legal standards and principles of investment protection. Such cases arose in a specific arbitral configuration inherent to international investment law whereby the claimant is normally the investor and the defendant is its host State. This trend is however changing concomitantly with the very landscape of international investment law which has freshly started to include standards of corporate social responsibility and investors’ duties within its ambit, namely in investment protection agreements. Some of these duties, which have been upheld by arbitral tribunals, relate to sustainable development and focus, for instance, on environmental and human rights protection or on preventing corruption (mal)practices. Set against this background, this article will discuss whether there is, in international law, a corporate duty to contribute to sustainable development. It will argue that the duty exists even though its legal regime is still under technical construction and is flawed in some of its aspects. Alternatively, the article uncommonly presents investment arbitration as a venue to enforce sustainable development corporate duties.