Originally from:
Investment Treaty Arbitration and International Law - Volume 4 - Hardcover
Investment Treaty Arbitration and International Law - Volume 4 - Electronic
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Chapter 7
China BITs and MFN: Will the Renta 4 Award
and New Jurisprudence Expand the Application
of China BITs?
PANEL DISCUSSION
MR. LAIRD: Thanks very much, everybody. Welcome back to our
second panel. It's titled "China BITs and MFN." We have a marvelous
group for you. I'll hand it over to our moderator, Matthew Slater.
Matthew is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Cleary, Gottlieb,
Steen, & Hamilton. Matthew's practice focuses on international arbitration
and litigation involving sovereigns. He's a member of the ICC Task Force
on Arbitration Involving States or State Entities and has done some very
interesting work in this field. I know Matthew is very well prepared for
this eminent group and our keen authors. I want to thank Matthew very
much for taking on this task and I'll pass over the baton so to speak.
Thank you, Matthew.
MR. SLATER: Thanks very much, Ian. We will be discussing today
the evolving role of the most favored nation clause in investment treaty.
We have two papers that have been developed by Petr Polášek and Luisa
Torres, both rising stars here in Washington as it happens, Petr with White
& Case and Luisa with Covington & Burling. They are really looking
forward to sharing with you what they have to say.
On the panel is Stephen Fietta, Partner from Latham & Watkins in
London. Stephen has had a distinguished practice with the Council of
Europe, the English government, and for several years now with Latham
in their public international law practice. Matt Kirtland is with Fulbright.
Their arbitration group has had extensive experience in both domestic and
international arbitration involving UNCITRAL, AAA, ICSID, LCIA – you
name it, he's been involved with it. Todd Weiler is sitting in for David
Lindsey, who unfortunately was called away for client matters this
morning. Last on our panel is Michael Nolan, who is with Milbank in New
York. He also has extensive experience with treaty arbitration and is
together with the rest of the panel looking forward to sharing those
thoughts with you.
By way of organization, we've invited Petr and Luisa to summarize a
couple of broad themes with respect to MFN clauses in general
and with respect to China. A question that their work poses is whether
we're on the cusp of a new wave of developments with MFN clauses. They
look particularly at three recent decisions involving the possibility of
expanding the scope of jurisdiction under treaties through the use of the
most favored nation clause. Luisa will describe generally the history and
development of MFN clauses and explain the generations of decisions.
Then Petr is going to put it specifically in the China context and help us
understand similar waves of developments within China's BIT practice.
After that, the panel will chime in on various questions.
