About Investment Claims

Awards and decisions

Coverage

Investment Claims aims to publish all publicly available awards and decisions arising out of international investment arbitrations, and related enforcement or review decisions from national courts. The collection at launch includes over 300 arbitral awards, decisions, and determinations issued under the auspices of bodies such as:

• International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID)
• ICC International Court of Arbitration
• London Court of International Arbitration
• Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce
• Permanent Court of Arbitration
• Association of South East Asian Nations arbitral tribunal

The site also reports awards and decisions of ad hoc international arbitral tribunals, such as those dealing with claims presented under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) or under the arbitration rules of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). Determinations on insurance contracts made by the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) are also reported.

Early access to full text of awards and decisions

Expert practitioner and academic advisors notify OUP of awards and decisions as soon as they become available. OUP aims to publish the full text within 48 hours of receipt of the source text. This early publication is aimed at providing users with access to the text in advance of publication of a full case report.

A basic headnote is also provided at this stage, containing information about the award or decision to aid subscribers with searching and browsing.

Full reports of awards and decisions, plus analysis

Subscribers to Investment Claims will find fully searchable and linked awards and decisions online, accompanied by full reports and analysis.

When will OUP commission a full report?

A full report of a decision or award is commissioned, together with expert analysis where appropriate, for the following types of awards and decisions:

• Awards on the merits (including interim awards addressing issues relating to the merits of a dispute)
• Awards dealing with jurisdictional issues
• Awards dealing with damages, interest and costs
• Annulment decisions
• Domestic court decisions relating to international investment arbitration

Generally, OUP will not commission full case reports for the following types of awards and decisions:

• Procedural orders
• OPIC determinations

What is contained in a full report of a decision or award?

Full case reports include:

• a summary of the facts and findings
• a note of the arbitral rules applicable to the arbitration
• a note of the governing law applied
• lists of decisions and instruments cited in the full text, and
• an analysis designed to provide the legal context for the decision.

The analysis provides an examination of the international investment law issues presented and decided by the decision, so that a reader unfamiliar with the issues in question can understand the holdings and quickly assess the relevance of a decision to a particular question of international law. Awards and decisions will be linked and cross-referenced to other awards, relevant arbitral rules, bilateral investment treaties and instruments cited in the text through the Oxford Law Citator.

How quickly are full reports published online?

OUP aims to publish these full case reports, with accompanying analysis, within three months of initial publication of the full text of the decision on Investment Claims. Whilst in practice full reports are often published more quickly than this, OUP's editorial values mean that quality cannot be sacrificed for speed. New decisions in international investment law often provoke intense debate, and we are careful to allow this to play out, and to give our experts sufficient time to understand and consider the importance and relevance of a decision before we ask them to submit their comment on it.

Once the full report is published, the case will reappear on the Investment Claims home page, in the Updates section, with a note indicating that a full report is now available.

Translations of non-English decisions

For decisions issued in languages other than English, OUP will publish any publicly available official English language translation. In instances where an official English language translation is not available, OUP will commission a translation of key paragraphs of the decision.

All OUP-commissioned translations go through a stringent checking process, during which native speakers of the language in question review the work of the translator. The reporter responsible for the original report of the decision is also given the opportunity to review the translation to ensure that they agree with the substance of the translation and that none of the legal nuances of the original language decision are lost.

What search functionality is provided for awards and decisions?

In addition to advanced text and keyword searching, subscribers can also search awards and decisions by:

• host state
• investor
• arbitrator
• counsel
• date

Extensive browse functionality is also provided for subscribers.

Bilateral investment treaties and overviews*

Bilateral investment treaty sets

At launch Investment Claims will contain bilateral investment treaty (BIT) sets for the following nine key jurisdictions:

• Canada
• China
• Czech Republic
• France
• Germany
• Pakistan
• Russia
• Switzerland
• United States

Each set comprises a collection of BITs signed by the relevant key jurisdiction, together with a jurisdictional overview providing detailed commentary. Once full content enhancement is completed, subscribers will be able to link to BITs, via the Oxford Law Citator, from the awards and decisions in which they are discussed.

Jurisdictional overviews

For each jurisdiction, an overview is included, written by correspondents who are experts on that jurisdiction.

This overview sets out:

• the history of the BIT programme
• current BIT policy
• an analysis of the BIT programme
• an analysis of the status of BITs in national law
• a list of all BITs signed by the jurisdiction including those not publicly available or not yet included on the site
• links to selected awards discussing BITs signed by the jurisdiction

In some instances the jurisdictional overview will be published shortly after the treaty set.

Supporting documents

OUP will endeavour to include with the text of BITs certain publicly available materials that provide context or aid in interpretation, such as exchanges of letters between the contracting parties or evidence of subsequent agreement or practice. Other material, which the correspondent in that jurisdiction feels is of significant use to the user, will also be included as supplementary information.

Supporting documents will follow after the text of the BIT.

Translations of non-English versions

Where an official English version is available, the English version will be published. Where no official English version is available, the treaty will be published in the language of the key jurisdiction being reported on, or, where both countries are considered key jurisdictions, the language first received. Information on the date of signature, date entered into force, and the official citation, as available at the time of first publication, is provided for each treaty.

Regular updating, and a growing archive

Bilateral investment treaty sets will be reviewed by the jurisdictional correspondent every 3 months, and the published information updated, where appropriate.

Updating aims to ensure the inclusion in the service of any important information on new BITs signed, existing BITs coming into force, or any substantive changes relating to the published BITs or affecting an existing jurisdictional overview.

In addition, OUP will continue to build the archive, aiming to publish eight new treaty sets in the year following launch.

Commentaries*

OUP is a leading publisher of scholarly and practitioner commentaries on international arbitration. Investment Claims will provide fully searchable online versions of key OUP arbitration books and journal articles.

Monographs included at launch

The first commentaries to be made available are:

• McLachlan, Shore and Weiniger, International Investment Arbitration (2007)
• Muchlinski, Multinational Enterprises and the Law (2007)

Plans to add more monographs

We have now added the following monographs to the site since launch:

• Muchlinkski, Ortino, and Schreuer, Oxford Handbook of International Investment Law (2008)
• Dolzer and Schreuer, Principles of International Investment Law (2008)

The following are amongst the monographs to be added to the Investment Claims service in the next year:

• Dugan, Wallace, Rubins and Sabahi, Investor-State Arbitration [not yet published]
• Shan and Gallagher, Chinese Investment Treaties
• Gibson and Drahozal, Iran-US Claims Tribunal at 25: The Cases Everyone Needs to Know for Investor State and International Arbitration (2007)
• Caron, UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules (2006)
• Rubins and Kinsella, International Investment, Political Risk and Dispute Resolution (2005)

Journal articles

Relevant journal articles are included in Investment Claims from:

• The European Journal of International Law
• The Journal of International Economic Law
• The British Year Book of International Law, and
• The Chinese Journal of International Law.

Key instruments in international investment law*

Investment Claims contains a collection of key documents relevant to investment disputes, including:

• Domestic arbitration statutes from leading arbitration jurisdictions
• Institutional rules of the major arbitration institutions and entities
• Multilateral treaties

This set of documents includes those key instruments most often referred to in the awards, decisions and commentaries published on the service. Once full content enhancement is completed, they will be linked and cross-referenced to each other through the Oxford Law Citator.

Updating the key instruments collection

These documents will be reviewed on a regular basis, and updated where appropriate.

Ensuring quality

OUP applies a strict and robust editorial process to all legal content created for online publication.

• OUP has assembled an extensive network of reporters, reviewers, and treaty correspondents to bring you reports, analysis and updates of the highest quality.
• Reporters and treaty correspondents are chosen for their familiarity with the law in question and their geographical placement in a particular jurisdiction.
• All Investment Claims reports are peer reviewed by experts in the field and reviewed by the General Editor to ensure that quality standards are met.
• Jurisdictional overviews are reviewed by the Treaties Editor.
• The reports of decisions and awards, jurisdictional overviews and all updates then undergo a thorough edit by OUP's specialist editorial team. Only when the quality of the report or update is assured will it be submitted for online publication.

Links and inclusion in the Oxford Law Citator*

All reported decisions, instruments and commentaries are linked to the Oxford Law Citator. The Citator manages the links between documents and provides a powerful research tool, allowing users to understand cross-references between all types of document, including cases, instruments and provisions of instruments, and commentaries.

Stage 1 - A basic record in the Oxford Law Citator is created for each reported case, treaty, jurisdictional overview and commentary before it appears online, and the report is published with a link to that record already in place. Links from cited items (whether case law, legislation, other instruments, official documents or secondary sources) will not be visible online at this stage.

Stage 2 - Following publication, further enhancement takes place in relation to awards and decisions documents, jurisdictional overviews, and journal articles, to allow them to be incorporated fully into the Citator. This process can take a number of weeks, as citations are fully investigated and validated against external sources by our specialist research team, before the links are resolved to a unique Citator record for each cited item. The links within the document will be activated once this second stage of the enhancement process is completed.

Planned schedule for the enhancement of content through the Oxford Law Citator*

Awards and decisions

Stage 1 will be complete by launch and stage 2 will follow.

Bilateral investment treaties and overviews

Stage 1 will be started before launch and will be completed soon after launch. OUP does not plan at this time to put all bilateral investment treaty documents through stage 2 of the enhancement process.

Commentaries

Stage 1 will be completed by launch for all commentaries, and stage 2 will follow for journal articles. OUP does not plan at this time to put all monographs through stage 2 of the enhancement process.

Key instruments in international investment law

Stage 1 will be completed by launch. Stage 2 will follow.

Editorial queries

Queries related to content, editorial policy or process, coverage or the enhancement of content for the Citator, and which are submitted to OUP via the Investment Claims website, will be acknowledged by the Academic and Professional Law department within 24 hours of receipt, Monday to Friday. If your query cannot be answered right away, we will make every effort to provide an answer within one week.