Should African and Asian states continue with investor-state dispute settlement?

Asia and Africa were kept under subjugation by European states to ensure that their natural resources could be exploited to fuel the industrialisation that took place in Europe and to provide markets for finished products. 

Decolonisation has not stopped that process of exploitation achieved through colonialism. The techniques that were used through international law replicated the situation under colonialism. ISDS ensured that rules protected the investments made by foreign corporations in Africa and Asia through rules that ensured protection of foreign investments and contracts made by foreign investors. This was despite the fact that it was unconstitutional in many domestic systems for disputes relating to vital economic sectors to be settled by foreign tribunals. 

This seminar looks at ways of recovering sovereignty over the economies of African and Asian states and what could be done to dismantle the system of ISDS. It surveys the attempts that are being made to deal with ISDS as it affects resource producing states.

Muthucumaraswamy Sornarajah is Emeritus Professor of Law at the National University of Singapore. He is the author of the International Law on Foreign Investment (5th Edition, Cambridge University Press). He has sat on several arbitration tribunals dealing with foreign investment disputes.