The Energy Charter Treaty provides a multilateral legal framework towards the promotion and protection of energy investments. This book is devoted to a highly significant concept in this field - expropriation, which is examined through the prism of the Energy Charter Treaty while taking into consideration other international agreements, such as bilateral investment treaties, to which ECT member countries are party.
This book analyses both direct and indirect forms of the expropriation. It does so by evaluating in detail the expropriation legislation in selected ECT member countries as regards direct expropriation; and by examining the investment arbitration tribunals' awards relating to investor claims on governmental acts that allegedly constitute indirect expropriation.
The analysis of direct expropriation provisions reveals interesting comparisons and contrasts in terms of divergences between domestic legal frameworks and the ECT. Perhaps even more noteworthy is the thorough examination of investment arbitration cases in the ECT constituency relating to indirect expropriation. This is where the ECT member states have witnessed their governmental conduct being submitted to the adjudication of arbitral tribunals for alleged indirect expropriation claims against investors under the Energy Charter Treaty or the relevant BITs.
The intention of this study is to raise further awareness of the importance of the expropriation concept, both in direct and indirect form, as well as its repercussions in practical application, while taking into account its possible implications for future activities within the international and domestic legal fora.