The European Commission and the Canadian government today and tomorrow are hosting a first meeting for talks on a new multilateral investment court. Such a court could, the European Commission explained in an announcement, become the follow-up mechanism for the existing investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions that are part of 3,200 bilateral and multilateral free trade agreements around the world.
Gathering governments in Geneva, the two hosts are making an effort to meet their commitments with regard to reforming the much-debated ISDS system that caused considerable delay for the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the EU.
At the same time, the push also seems to hint to the parties’ ‘now-more-than-ever’ resolve amidst questions over changes in the international trade agenda after the election of Donald Trump in the United States.
EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström and Canada’s Minister for International Trade Chrystia Freeland are also expected to discuss the multilateral investment court initiative with other trade ministers in the margins of the World Economic Forum in Davos on 20 January 2017, the Commission announced in the release.
After the Geneva meeting, the Commission will start a public consultation and draw its conclusions next summer.
While it is still early days to say how a standing multilateral investment court would look like, and if it would be funded by the parties, it could be “modelled on the set up of most domestic and international courts and tribunals, which are normally composed of two instances – a first instance and an appeal instance,” the Commission explained.
It added: “the first instance level could adjudicate claims brought under investment treaties that interested countries have decided to assign to the authority of the multilateral court. The appeal instance could hear appeals of the decisions of the first instance tribunal.“
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