Following a record year in 2020, during which there were at least 12 decisions on proposals to disqualify arbitrators and ad hoc committee members within the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) context (beating the previous record in 2018), there were just three decision in 2021, only one of which is in the public domain; however, 2022 saw an uptake in challenges with eight decisions issued.
Having regard to the public availability of decisions and this flurry of activity, the chapter focuses on challenges to arbitrators (and committee members) brought under the ICSID Convention.
The chapter first sets out the grounds for disqualification under the ICSID Convention and Rules, then briefly details the prevailing legal standard as developed through ICSID jurisprudence. The majority of the chapter is devoted to a discussion of three categories of alleged conflict, concentrating on the reasoning of publicly available decisions published between 2018 and 2022.
The whole publication is available at thelawreviews.co.uk
An extract from The Investment Treaty Arbitration Review is available below.