Originally from Energy Dispute Resolution: Investment Protection, Transit and the Energy Charter Treaty

Initiating an arbitration against a State on the basis of an investment treaty assumes that the claiming party has ensured that it satisfies the qualifying conditions under the treaty, namely that it is a protected investor under the treaty, that its investment is protected under the treaty, and that the dispute is covered by the temporal application of the treaty. These are, respectively, the requirements ratione personae, ratione materiae and ratione temporis on the basis of which a respondent State may object to an arbitral tribunal’s jurisdiction and failing which the arbitration cannot proceed. The very first requirement, of course, is for the treaty to have come into force and to be binding on the host State.