Originally from World Arbitration and Mediation Review (WAMR)

In the last five years, there has been widespread criticism of judges from the International Court of Justice (“ICJ”) for acting as arbitrators within investor-state disputes. This criticism has questioned the scope of Article 16 of the ICJ Statute and the judges’ duty to work exclusively for the Court.  This criticism has brought into focus the importance of impartiality within international dispute resolution and has subsequently caused international bodies to take proactive steps to reform investor-state dispute resolution mechanisms. This article will briefly discuss the importance of impartiality; the recent criticism of ICJ judges’ “moonlighting” as arbitrators; and the steps taken by the European Union and UNCITRAL to create an independent dispute resolution body, to alleviate the ethical and impartiality concerns relating to investor-state dispute cases.