Law & Legal Studies

Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) cases and India: Affronting regulatory autonomy or indicting capricious state behaviour?

Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS)

This paper reviews all the investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) cases that India has lost to ascertain the reason why these claims were brought against India in the first place.

Author

Prabhash Ranjan, Professor and Vice Dean, Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India.

Summary

The dominant narrative in the investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) system is that it enables powerful corporations to encroach upon the regulatory power of developing countries aimed at pursuing compelling public interest objectives. The example of Phillip Morris, the tobacco giant, suing Uruguay’s public health measures is cited as the most significant example to prove this thesis. 

The other side of the story that States abuse their public power to undermine the protected rights of foreign investors does not get much attention. 

This paper reviews all the ISDS cases that India has lost to ascertain the reason why these claims were brought against India in the first place. The approach of the paper is to study these ISDS cases to find out whether these cases arose due to abuse of the State’s public power or affronted India’s regulatory autonomy.

Published in: Journal of International Trade Law and Policy

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