Trial lecture - time and place
Feb. 21, 2020 10:00–11:00 AM, Gamle festsal, 1st floor Domus Academica
Adjudication committee
- Professor Ole Kristian Fauchald, University of Oslo (leader)
- Professor Andrea Bjorklund, McGill, Faculty of Law (1. opponent)
- Dr. Monique Sasson, Macchi di Cellere Gangemi (2. opponent)
Chair of defence
Dean Ragnhild Hennum
Supervisors
- Professor Giuditta Cordero-Moss
- Professor Ivar Alvik
Summary
Contracts are relevant, frequently central, for a significant number of investment disputes between foreign investors and states which arise under inter-state treaties on the protection of foreign investments. Yet, the way tribunals ascertain their content remains largely underexplored.
The work fills this gap by offering an insight into the theory and practice of contract interpretation in the decision-making of treaty-based tribunals. To this end, the work develops the conceptual foundation for contract interpretation in investment treaty arbitration, clarifies true and false tensions between competing interpretative approaches, justifies the role of municipal law for contract interpretation and offers a theoretical frame for seamless integration of the analysis on ascertaining the content of contractual provisions into the overall structure of decision-making in investment treaty arbitration.
The thesis overall contributes to the predictability, consistency, coherence and correctness of the tribunals’ interpretative practices and the overall efficiency of the tribunal’s decision-making.