One of the main objectives of investment arbitration, as a feature of international investment law, is to provide a neutral forum for the parties in dispute. Neutrality is necessary because the parties are fundamentally different: while the investor is a private entity, the state is a sovereign entity with sovereign immunity. However, the scenario of…

It has been ten years since Bolivia denounced the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes Convention (“ICSID Convention”), becoming the first country to withdraw from the ICSID Convention in history. True, several countries have never even signed the ICSID Convention in the first place (including large economies such as Brazil and India), but until…

As reported in the excellent piece by Alejandro López Ortiz and Gustavo Fernandes in “A Year of Legal Developments for International Arbitration in Latin America”, Bolivia may have taken a step back in State arbitration with the passing of its new act on arbitration in 2015. The article remarks the limitations to arbitrability introduced by…