The Margin of Appreciation in International Investment Law

34 Pages Posted: 3 Sep 2013 Last revised: 11 Jan 2015

See all articles by Julian Arato

Julian Arato

University of Michigan Law School

Date Written: September 2, 2013

Abstract

Investment treaties tend to say nothing, or only very little, about the appropriate standard of review for arbitrating disputes between sovereign states and foreign investors. Most treaties do not address whether states should be afforded any deference in their own assessment of their treaty obligations. Neither do they specify the converse, that state action must be strictly reviewed. They are simply silent – and their silence has been interpreted in innumerable ways by different tribunals. This interpretive chaos has generated calls for a unified approach – one that would resolve the uncertain and fragmented status quo, while being sufficiently flexible as to admit the application of different standards of review in different contexts. To some, the venerable doctrine of the margin of appreciation appears to fit just this bill – a solution finding growing favor among tribunals and commentators, not to mention advocates for respondent states.

This Article challenges the suitability of the margin of appreciation in the adjudication of investment disputes. This judge-made doctrine is famously a product of Strasbourg, manufactured by the European Court of Human Rights. Its halting import into the global investment regime is only a recent phenomenon. Through comparison to the ECtHR, I suggest that certain key grounds for affording the margin in its original context do not obtain within investment law – calling into question doctrine’s propriety in its new setting.

Beyond questioning the suitability of the margin of appreciation within ad hoc investment disputes, this Article challenges the broader premise that the problem of fragmented approaches to the standard of review among investment tribunals can be best resolved through recourse to any unified a priori doctrine of deference. As evidenced by the adventures of the margin in several recent arbitral awards, such attempts tend to produce only a pernicious illusion of unity. I argue, instead, that the desired certainty can be achieved only gradually, through judicial practice and dialogue over the medium to long term.

Suggested Citation

Arato, Julian, The Margin of Appreciation in International Investment Law (September 2, 2013). Virginia Journal of International Law, Vol. 54, No. 3, 2014, Columbia Public Law Research Paper No. 13-358, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2319559 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2319559

Julian Arato (Contact Author)

University of Michigan Law School ( email )

625 South State Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1215
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
907
Abstract Views
8,209
Rank
48,135
PlumX Metrics