The Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes of the UNASUR: Historical Background and Current Status of the Centre

Abstract

This is an introduction to the UNASUR, as well as to the historical background of the initiative of the UNASUR to create a Centre for the settlement of investment disputes as an alternative to the ICSID. The article is accompanied by three versions of the Agreement of the Creation of the above-mentioned Centre that will be opened for signature by the member-states of the UNASUR as well as by non-member states. This is a regional South-American initiative that pretends to progressively grow to cover Latin-America as a middle-term goal, and the world-over as a long-term goal. The documents were originally prepared in Spanish, and an unofficial translation of each of them is available in this article.

Keywords: investment dispute settlement, UNASUR, South-America, multilateral agreement