Access and advantage expanded: Mobil Corporation v Venezuela and other recent arbitration awards on treaty shopping

摘要

Although treaty shopping in international investment arbitration has become an increasingly popular practice, little critical analysis has been written to date expressly focusing on this topic. For this reason 'Access and advantage in investor-state arbitration: the law and practice of treaty shopping' and its analysis of the decision of the tribunal in Phoenix Action v Czech is a timely and important piece of legal commentary. However, it is important to note that not all investor-state awards contemplating treaty shopping conform to the philosophy espoused by the Phoenix Action Tribunal. As such, this note briefly canvasses some of these decisions to further flush out the emerging principle of 'abuse of process' identified by the 'Access and advantage' authors in respect of investment arbitration treaty shopping.