Time for the appeal tribunal in investment arbitration: Lessons from WTO

This Paper aims to give an idea of an Appeal Tribunal in Investment Arbitration. Problems of International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and ad hoc arbitration, European Union (EU) Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) Proposal for the establishment of an Appeal Court will be discussed and the Dispute Settlement Mechanism of World Trade Organization (WTO) will be reviewed as a comparative study. An appellate review mechanism for the awards of ad hoc arbitral tribunals is necessary for building an effective, legitimate, and transparent judicial system in the investor-state dispute settlement. Appeal Tribunal will help correcting the legal errors and securing the consistency between arbitral awards for the similar issues of investment law. Opposed to the EU TTIP Proposal on the establishment of a Tribunal of First Instance, the investment law must keep its ad hoc arbitration system in order to respond the unique needs of each dispute. By preserving the flexibility of ad hoc tribunals, the Appeal Tribunal would be likely to achieve the goal of harmonizing international investment law. As a viable example, lessons from the World Trade Organization experience and structure of the World Trade Organization Appellate Body may lead to create a transparent appellate mechanism for investment arbitration