CCSI Submits Written Views to US Department of State Regarding UNCITRAL’s Working Group III

In connection with the US Department of State’s Annual Advisory Committee on Private International law meeting in May 2019, CCSI submitted written views (available here) regarding UNCITRAL’s Working Group III on ISDS reform. CCSI’s comments highlighted specific areas of CCSI’s research as it relates to the US Government and its work within the Working Group. Specifically, US investment treaty negotiating objectives specify that covered foreign investors in the United States should not be accorded greater substantive rights than domestic investors. CCSI highlights the ways in which greater procedural rights afforded under investment treaties to foreign investors in practice result in greater substantive rights, and focuses on three distinct issues including: (1) third-party funding, (2) the rights and interests of non-parties to disputes, and (3) settlement of ISDS disputes. UNCITRAL’s Working Group III, which is focused on procedural reforms to ISDS, provides an opportunity to address and reform rules in these three areas to better align with US treaty objectives.