16 November 2022
By Hanna Jez
CIBEL member Dr Lu Wang has co-authored a journal article for a Special Issue of the ICSID Review - Foreign Investment Law Journal on ‘Force Majeure and Investment Arbitration’ with Professor Wenhua Shan, founding Dean of the School of Law at Xi’an Jiaotong University in China.
The article considers how force majeure is dealt with in an international investment arbitration setting and observes how it interacts with relevant domestic, commercial and international laws. The authors investigate the origin and evolution of force majeure within domestic and international laws and then analyse it in more detail under the International Law Commission’s Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (ARSIWA). The article goes on to examine force majeure in the practice of investment arbitration including treaty, contractual, and mixed claims. The article argues that ISDS jurisprudence on force majeure reflects the problem of the increasingly blurred boundaries between domestic and international, private and public law in the field of international investment arbitration, and suggests reconsidering the legitimacy and sustainability of the conventional distinctions of the different sets of laws, as well as exploring potential ways for a more consistent interpretation and application of force majeure issues in future investment arbitration.
‘Force Majeure and Investment Arbitration’ has been published in the 37th volume of the ICSID Review - Foreign Investment Law Journal.
The article is available here.
Dr Lu Wang is a Lecturer in Law. Her primary area of research interest is international and comparative economic law, with a particular focus on international investment law, international arbitration, State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) and Chinese regulation of foreign trade and investment.