Author: Deanna Barmakian, Foreign, Comparative & International Law Research & Student Services Librarian, Harvard Law School Library
Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) is a growing area of research interest. There are a number of specialized databases useful for exploring these materials. Investor-state disputes are legal controversies where a foreign investor brings a claim against a country, usually pursuant to rights under a bilateral investment treaty. These disputes are nearly always arbitrated rather than litigated. The following is a selective list of subscription resources available at my institution that are particularly useful for ISDS research.
Investment Arbitration Reporter (Vendor Description): IA Reporter provides outcomes and analysis of investor-state dispute proceedings. Coverage begins mainly in 2008 with selective inclusion of earlier key awards. Editors report on claims and arbitral awards, including many confidential proceedings not reported elsewhere. The Topic Tool allows users to retrieve materials using a detailed ISDS taxonomy. Alternatively, users can search and filter by claimants, year, treaty, and other parameters. News articles are created by IA editors and can be browsed or filtered by country, forums, topics, industry, etc. The database includes profiles of ISDS Arbitrators.
Investor-State LawGuide (Vendor Description): ISLG provides public arbitral awards pursued under investment treaties. Coverage begins in the late 1990s and is most comprehensive for controversies pursued under NAFTA (now USMCA) and ICSID (Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States). Documents are annotated with links to referenced treaty articles. Uniquely, it offers a citator for arbitral awards. The Subject Navigator allows retrieval by specialized ISDS taxonomy. Beyond cases and awards, this source includes investment treaties themselves as well as current and historic arbitration rules. The database has a list of subject experts browsable by country, client, and expertise.
ICSID Reports (Vendor Description): ICSID Reports is a long-standing case reporter from Cambridge University Press with curated, selective coverage of notable, public ISDS awards. Volume 1 was published in 1993, and the most current volume is 2022. Since 2018, each volume is themed and includes scholarly commentary; usually two lengthy analyses of emerging topics in investment law.
In addition to these sources with concentrated coverage of ISDS, the following two subscription databases have collections useful for ISDS researchers.
Jus Mundi (Vendor Description): Jus Mundi has a deep collection of arbitration materials, and includes those based on investment laws and contracts. It has public cases and awards but also includes some unpublished arbitration materials. To access its ISDS content, select Cases then filter by Investor-State. This collection can be searched or filtered by many parameters including country or treaty. Notably, docket materials are available for many ISDS proceedings. Coverage is most substantial from the late 1980s, but there is some earlier coverage.
Kluwer Arbitration (Vendor Description): This database specializes in international arbitration cases, awards and commentary. While not focused solely on ISDS, it includes extensive relevant treatises, journals, and case commentaries. The coverage for ISDS is primarily for public awards, mostly ICSID cases. Navigation to this collection is via the Cases & Awards menu followed by filtering by Case Type: Investment. Coverage is from the mid-2010s.
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