International Investment Law

The International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID)

The World Bank's ICSID was established in 1966 by the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes Between States and Nationals of Other States ('the ICSID Convention').  The ICSID Convention is an international treaty ratified and in force for 161 States. ICSID provides arbitration and conciliation services to resolve disputes between a contracting State (the 'Host' State) and foreign investors from another contracting State. ICSID arbitration most often takes place under the ICSID Convention and the ICSID Rules of Procedure for Arbitration Proceedings (ICSID Arbitration Rules). More from the official ICSID website.

ICSID Decisions are available on the following databases:

• The open access ICSID case law database - this is the most comprehensive source of ICSID awards and decisions - including decisions not reported in the ICSID Reports. It includes concluded and pending cases, headnotes and analysis

• Investment Treaty Arbitration (italaw) - an open access database of newly released awards and decisions.

• ​ICSID Reports on the Cambridge Law Reports database (UniMelb staff & student access) - contains all ICSID Reports, from vol 1 to current.
  • To search only ICSID Reports, select Browse Cases on the top menu. 
  • Select Go to Case from the menu on the left-hand side of the page.
  • Select ICSID from the Dropdown Source menu.
  • There is no need to choose a volume or start page.
  • Click Submit - all ICSID awards will be listed.
  • The decisions can be sorted by eg: ascending or descending date of the case, and narrowed by keywords, parties, country etc.  

Books on ICSID