States can defend themselves in cases alleging that they have violated investment treaty obligations on the grounds that situations of economic crisis required that they take emergency action. Likely defenses are the customary international law doctrines of necessity and force majeure, although...

Decisions by arbitral tribunals in investment treaty cases do not have formal precedential status. Yet certain issues recur, and prior decisions at the least provide guidance to later tribunals. The content of the most frequently invoked substantive treaty provisions - the obligations to accord...