International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID)

December 2011

Signing international investment treaties, in the hope of attracting foreign investments, has been a central strategy for governments looking to improve economic development. The less known side of this story is that by signing investment treaties,...

Global Investment Rules: Threat to Democracy and the Environment

November 2011

Around the world, citizens have been mobilizing to defend their environment and economic sovereignty from transnational corporations, but there is another threat lurking in the shadows that can ride roughshod over our rights. A video of the...

The implications of international investment treaties

November 2011

TNI

Gus Van Harten discusses specific cases of investor-to-state arbitration to highlight what are the key problems with international investment treaties. How developing countries are being impacted by investment disputes and what the role is of lawyers and experts in promoting a growing...

Legalised Profiteering?

November 2011

Nick Buxton

The secretive and lucrative world of international investment arbitration has enriched a small coterie of multi-billion dollar international firms, which actively promote and even help finance litigations against states and have fought fiercely to prevent changes to an unjust international...

ASEAN Regional Forum on Investment (21-22 September, Manila)

September 2011

Between 20 and 21 September 2011, 40 ASEAN campaigners and experts met in Manila to share knowledge and experiences, articulate common strategies and discuss alternatives to the current investment regime.

Mining for El Salvador's Gold... In Washington

August 2010

Manuel Perez Rocha

An international tribunal gives the green light to a lawsuit brought by two companies attempting to overcome strong public and government resistance to their destructive gold mining.

Petition protesting Telecom Italia's case against Bolivia at World Bank tribunal, ICSID

March 2008

TNI

The letter below and updated petition was delivered on 20 March 2008 to World Bank President Zoellick and ICSID General Secretary Ana Palacio and to contacts for ETI and their lawyers, Telefonica, Telecom Italia, World Bank external affairs, and the ICSID secretariat. For background information...

Global campaign against anti-democratic investment rules

January 2008

TNI

Bolivia is being sued by Telecom Italia in a secretive World Bank tribunal, ICSID, even though the Andean nation withdrew from the tribunal in May 2007.