NAFTA Chapter 11 Investor-to-State Dispute Resolution: A Shield to Be Embraced or a Sword to Be Feared?
Bibliographic record
Abstract
I. INTRODUCTION When North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA or Agreement) celebrated its five-year anniversary in 1999, all of trade statistics compiled at time suggested that NAFTA was an unparalleled success. For example, from 1994 to 1999, Canada's trade with United States rose 80%, while its trade with Mexico doubled.1 By 1998, the total three-way trade among Canada, Mexico, and United States reached approximately $752 billion, with Canada-U.S. and Canada-Mexico trade accounting for $484 billion.2 Also, from 1993 to 1999, foreign direct investment in Canada rose 54% to $218 billion, of which about 68% came from NAFTA countries.3 Despite glowing reviews about increase in trade and investment among NAFTA countries, Agreement has come under rising criticism, in particular for Chapter 11 investor-to-state dispute resolution regime. In fact, Chapter 11 proceedings have resulted in broader interpretations and far wider applications of statutory framework than many of NAFTA's drafters envisioned.4 However, given NAFTA's lofty objectives and purposes, it is not surprising that Chapter 11 has been interpreted broadly.5 IMAGE FORMULA3 The strongest critics of Chapter 11 claim that NAFTA countries have risked their national sovereignty and their ability to freely engage in democratic law-making processes without fear of having to compensate foreign investors for every regulation that negatively affects them. These critics claim that Chapter 11 has become a sword for investors, allowing them to attack NAFTA countries, rather than shield it was intended to be. This Comment will show that Chapter 11 dispute resolution regime is indeed a shield necessary to protect foreign investors, while at same time containing potential to become an offensive sword to be used against NAFTA countries. This Comment will also recommend possible solutions and demonstrate that by making appropriate amendments to Chapter 11, foreign investors will still be afforded a viable forum in which to address grievances with their host nations, and NAFTA countries will be able to better protect their vital interests. Part II reviews historical background of Chapter 11 dispute resolution as well as its substantive and procedural structures. Part III considers key case studies forming foundation of many of various issues and points of contention among NAFTA's critics and proponents. Part IV specifically outlines some of most contentious points regarding Chapter 11 dispute resolution and considers whether most common criticisms of Chapter 11 are warranted. For sake of brevity, this discussion focuses only on issues related to sovereignty, constitutional questions, statutory definitions and environment. Part IV also recommends several ways to improve upon Chapter 11 dispute resolution regime. Finally, Part V concludes that Chapter 11 regime can be improved by providing more openness in arbitral process, clearer statutory definitions, and improved procedural safeguards. IMAGE FORMULA5 II. FOUNDATIONS OF CHAPTER 11 INVESTOR-TO-STATE DISPUTE RESOLUTION A. Historical Underpinnings Throughout eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, colonial powers usually resolved disputes in foreign investment matters by imposing their will upon their subjected colonies either by implied or actual force. This inequitable method of resolving foreign investment problems has been referred to as gun-boat diplomacy.6 Surprisingly, it was not until 1950s that United Nations (UN) Charter outlawed use of force in settling foreign investment disputes.7 Prior to enactment of UN Charter, disputes were commonly waged between states because private investors lacked standing under international law. …
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.008 | 0.007 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; both teacher heads agree on what is shown here.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".