Dr. Yulia Levashova, Prof. Julien Chaisse and Dr. Ilia Rachkov will be editing a TDM Special Issue on the interaction between international investment law and special economic zones (SEZs).
SEZs and international investment law interact in several different ways. International investment agreements (IIA) are, similarly to SEZs, concluded by states with the goal of attracting foreign investors. IIAs make no distinction between foreign investments and investments made in SEZs. Consequently, foreign investors may initiate investment claims against a host state for mistreatment in an applicable SEZ. In the past, foreign investors have challenged the revocation of fiscal and tax benefits that were provided by a state’s authorities under the SEZ’s regime. In a number of investment cases, tribunals have also dealt with the issue of attribution by assessing whether a SEZ’s authority qualifies as a state organ for the purpose of an applicable IIA.
General issues of interaction between investment law and SEZs that may include:
- Coherence in investment law and policy making, particularly in relation to the legal infrastructure of SEZs and investment protection rules
- The protection of legitimate expectations of an investor in investment cases involving SEZs
- Indirect expropriation of SEZ investments
- The issue of attribution in investor-state disputes concerning the SEZs
- The assessment and clarification of SEZs in investment and trade agreements (e.g. tax carve-outs etc.)
- The interaction between specific dispute settlement mechanisms within SEZs and national courts and/or investment arbitration tribunals
- The relationship between the special procedures established in the SEZs and potential ISDS disputes
- Issues of non-discrimination between different types of foreign investors operating within and outside of SEZs
- Sustainable development objectives in SEZs and their relationship with IIA investment protection rules
- SEZ-related disputes under national law
- The Belt and Road Initiative: SEZs and foreign investments
Timeline and submission guidelines:
Proposals (200 words) and authors’ profiles (150-200 words) should be submitted to all three editors no later than 1 October 2019. Please CC info@transnational-dispute-management.com when submitting your materials. Full papers should be submitted by 30 December 2019. The release of the special issue is planned for the first quarter of 2020. Articles accepted for publication ahead of this schedule can also go through Transnational Dispute Management’s (TDM) online advanced publication process, allowing your work to reach its target audience as soon as the paper completes the peer review and editing process. The layout of the articles should conform to TDM’s submission guidelines available at www.transnational-dispute-management.com/contribute.asp (more information available upon request).
For more information please see: https://www.transnational-dispute-management.com/news.asp?key=1771