Originally from World Arbitration And Mediation Review (WAMR)

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I. INTRODUCTION
The Argentine crisis, whose economic and political impact was
most strongly felt in 2001-2002, has, over time, generated a sense
that the international investment regime is in crisis. The number
of investor-state claims produced to date as a result of that crisis
– the most ever directed against a single state emerging from the
contemporary web of investment protection treaties – along with
the ever rising number of arbitral awards issued in their wake,
have featured prominently in critiques of that regime.1 A wide
number of commentators have argued that the Argentina awards
and other decisions issued to date:
1. Demonstrate that the investment regime produces
inconsistent law that undermines the regime’s goals of
stability and predictability;
2. Are unduly intrusive on national sovereignty and a threat
to self-determination insofar as these are insufficiently
deferential to national law and the rights of sovereigns to
regulate in the public interest (to protect human, labor, or
environmental rights, for example);
3. Fail to respect the rights of nations to take necessary
emergency action in response to fundamental national
threats;
4. Reflect a strong bias in favor of investors-claimants insofar
as they view bilateral investment treaties (BITs) as one-