Call for Submissions: The European Union and International Investment Protection Law and Arbitration

Transnational Dispute Management has issued a call for submissions for a TDM special issue on "The European Union and International Investment Protection Law and Arbitration." Here's the call:

Dr. Richard Happ (Luther Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft mbH) and Prof. Dr. Christian Tietje (Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg) will be preparing a special edition with a focus on the relationship between investment treaty law and European Union law. This relationship already had been the focus of attention of arbitral tribunals in the past. Several investment treaties are in force between member states of the European Union. Recently, tribunals in i.a. AES v. Hungary and Electrabel v. Hungary faced the task to determine this relationship. With the entering into force of the Treaty of Lisbon on 1 December 2009, several new aspects became relevant, even though the proposal of the Commission for a regulation establishing transitional arrangements for bilateral investment agreements between Member States and third countries (COM(2010)344 final) is still under discussion. However, the EU has started concrete negotiations on investment chapters/treaties with third countries based on the communication from the Commission "Towards a comprehensive European international investment policy" (COM(2010)343 final).

The Special Edition should cover all important aspects arising out of the upcoming EU regulation and the emerging EU investment protection and promotion treaties. Topics to be covered include, inter alia,

• Requests for preliminary ruling (Art. 267 TFEU) by national courts of member states concerning investment arbitration awards (N.N.)
• EU, BITs and Investor's rights - can the post-termination protection be waived by States?
• The EU, the EU members states and the Energy Charter Treaty
• The future of EU investment policy (N.N.)

We ask you to submit substantiated proposals, i.e. an abstract, for topics. Proposed papers should not have been published or submitted for publication elsewhere yet.

The timeframe for the papers is difficult to ascertain. We currently expect that the regulation on transitional arrangements will not be agreed on by Council and EP this year (2011), but rather in winter/spring next year. The Special Edition should be published within a very short time once the final regulation has been adopted. We will be more clear on this by the end of 2011.