International Arbitration and Choice of Law under Article 42 of the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes

The most ambitious attempt to date to create an institutional mechanism for the resolution of international investment disputes--conflicts between foreign private investors and host state governments--is the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States. The Convention provides for arbitration or conciliation under the auspices of the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), a body attached to the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank). But in spite of the clear necessity for a widely-accepted means of resolving such conflicts, the success of ICSID arbitration remains, at best, qualified