Introduction to the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) - Chapter 1 - Investment Arbitration and the Energy Charter Treaty
Hans Corell, UN Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and Legal Counsel
Hans Corell is the Former Ambassador in the Swedish Foreign Service and Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and the Legal Counsel of the United Nations from March 1994 to March 2004. In 1984, he was appointed Ambassador and Head of the Department for Legal and Consular Affairs of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, a position he held until he joined the United Nations in 1994. He has been a member of Sweden’s delegation to the United Nations General Assembly from 1985 to 1993, and has had several assignments related to the Council of Europe, OECD and the CSCE (now OSCE).
Together with two other rapporteurs, Hans Corell authored the CSCE proposal for the establishment of the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, transmitted to the UN in February 1993. In 1998, he was the Secretary-General’s representative at the Rome Conference on the International Criminal Court. He holds an honorary Doctor of Laws degree at the University of Stockholm (1997).
Graham Coop, General Counsel, Energy Charter Secretariat
Graham Coop joined the Energy Charter Secretariat as General Counsel in 2004. Prior to this, he was head of the Energy and Natural Resources Group at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Paris, where he was based from 1992 until 2002, followed by two years as a partner with Denton Wilde Sapte’s Energy and Infrastructure Department in London. He was a member of the legal team representing Bahrain in its territorial sovereignty and maritime delimitation dispute with Qatar in the International Court of Justice, and received the Order of Bahrain as a result of his work. In 1998 and 1999, he was seconded to lead the five-lawyer International Transport and Supply Contracts Division of the Legal Service of Gaz de France, the French gas utility.
Laurent Gouiffès, Of Counsel, Allen & Overy, London and Paris
Laurent Gouiffès is of counsel in the litigation department of Allen & Overy and head of the international arbitration practice in Paris. From 2002 to 2005 he was a senior associate at Denton Wilde Sapte, London, and from 1998 to 2002 a lawyer at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Paris. He specialises in international arbitration, technical and energy-related disputes and energy advice. He has acted as counsel to parties or secretary to arbitral tribunals in numerous arbitrations, in particular under the ICC, LCIA, ICSID, CAS and UNCITRAL rules. He also has experience in non-contentious work in the energy sector and has advised in relation to LNG projects, uranium joint ventures and CHP agreements throughout Western Europe, the United States and Canada.
Mr. Gouiffès publishes regularly on topical issues in arbitration, energy and public/private international law. Since 2001, he has been a lecturer on international arbitration for a post-graduate course at the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne.
Originally from Investment Arbitration and the Energy Charter Treaty
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During the last ten-year period, the global economy has evolved rapidly. Globalisation is at the forefront of this evolution. The foundations have been freedom to trade, freedom to invest capital and freedom to establish business in foreign countries. This transformation, from national to international and from local to global is more drastic than we may first realize.
World trade has grown fast, foreign direct investment (“FDI”) even faster. Prior to 1970, world trade grew more rapidly than FDI. Since then, however, the flow of FDI has grown at more than twice the pace of the growth of worldwide exports. FDI is increasingly becoming an integral part of the world economy and plays a significant role in economic development both in developing and developed countries. It creates employment, increases productivity, enhances exports and fosters transfer of technology and know-how.
Several factors explain this development. The creation of the World Trade Organization (“WTO”) and the Uruguay round lowered trade barriers. The opening up of many economies gave foreign direct investment a larger role. In Europe, the establishment of the internal market in 1993 and its enlargement last year have facilitated economic exchange. The rapid developments of infrastructure and technology have simplified financial and economic transactions.