L'arbitrato degli investimenti esteri : la giurisdizione dei tribunali ICSID

International Arbitration of Investment Disputes: the Jurisdiction of ICSID Tribunals. The recent explosion of the ICSID cases is due to the proliferation of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and other multilateral treaties that contain investment provisions. These treaties are characterized by two important elements. On the one hand they include provisions by which the Host State accords to foreign investments and investors high standards of treatment and protection, on the other hand they contain dispute settlement provisions which grant to the foreign investors access to direct arbitration on the basis of the advance consent expressed by the States Parties therein. After dealing with the general limits to the jurisdiction of the ICSID on the basis of Art. 25 ICSID Convention, the thesis first outlines the features of investment treaty-based arbitration and secondly analyzes the jurisdictional requirements of Art. 25 ICSID Convention as interpreted by ICSID Tribunals established under BITs pointing out the different operation of these jurisdictional requirements in investment treaty arbitrations compared to their operation in respect of investment contract based arbitration. Lastly, taking into account the extensive scope of the protection ensured to foreign investments and investors by BITs through their substantive and dispute settlement provisions, the thesis deals with the current developments of international treaty investment law, giving special attention to the US 2004 model BIT and Canada s 2004 model BIT.