Originally from: Annulment of ICSID Awards

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In the words of Professor Schreuer, in his commentary of the ICSID Convention, “annulment is only concerned with the legitimacy of the process of decision; it is not concerned with its substantive correctness.”   It follows that even the most blatant error of fact in an award is not in itself a ground for annulment and cannot be redressed by an ad hoc committee.  It is only within the framework of the five grounds listed in Article 52 of the ICSID Convention that an ad hoc committee may be faced with the possibility, or necessity, or maybe impossibility, of reviewing a factual finding.

There are two categories of situations, depending on the role played by the factual finding at issue in the reasoning of the applicant: sometimes it is the way in which the fact was found that is at the centre of the criticism; at other times it is the fact itself which needs a fresh determination in order to decide whether a certain criticism is justified.