Reconciling International Climate Law and the Energy Charter Treaty through the Use of Integrative Interpretation in Arbitration

Eike Hinrichsen ()
Additional contact information
Eike Hinrichsen: Law School, University of Eastern Finland, 80100 Joensuu, Finland

Laws, 2024, vol. 13, issue 2, 1-19

Abstract: The conflicting objectives of the Energy Charter Treaty’s (ECT) protection of fossil fuel investments and climate change mitigation can reveal themselves in investor state dispute settlement (ISDS). As neither the modernization nor the termination of the ECT is likely, ECT arbitration will continue to exist. This article, therefore, examines the reconciling potential of integrative interpretation in climate relevant ECT arbitrations. An integrative interpretation is not only prescribed by the international rules of treaty interpretation, but can also be found in the practice of international dispute settlement. However, international climate law has not yet been taken into account by a single ECT tribunal. Although some hurdles and uncertainties remain in practice, examples of extraneous treaty use, as well as the reasoning of the judgments of recent climate litigation, show that ECT ISDS has the potential to reconcile climate change and energy investment interests in the future.

Keywords: investment arbitration; Energy Charter Treaty; principle of systemic integration; international climate law (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D78 E61 E62 F13 F42 F68 K0 K1 K2 K3 K4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-471X/13/2/24/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-471X/13/2/24/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlawss:v:13:y:2024:i:2:p:24-:d:1380376

Access Statistics for this article

Laws is currently edited by Ms. Heather Liang

More articles in Laws from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().