The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes
(ICSID) published a proposal for extensive changes to its rules for
resolving disputes between foreign investors and states. Despite
ICSID being one of the most utilised investment arbitration
facilities, it takes on average three or more years for an award to
be issued in an ICSID arbitration. The comprehensive set of reforms
is aimed at modernising and enhancing the efficiency of ICSID's
dispute settlement mechanism. These propose an entirely new set of
mediation rules as well as updating the existing arbitration,
conciliation and fact-finding rules.
Similar attempts were undertaken by other international
arbitration institutions. For instance, the International Court of
Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) updated
its rules already in December 2016. The revised rules came into
force in March 2017 and – as described by Claire Stockford,
partner at S + W, back in January 20171 –