26 April 2012 | CIL Seminar Series

The Fair and Equitable Treatment Standard: A Survey of Recent Developments in the Law

Introduction

One of the most commonly used substantive standards of treatment in investment treaties is the fair and equitable treatment standard. Treaties vary in terms of how they express the standard and thus the interpretation of one fair and equitable treatment clause may not be relevant to the interpretation of another. That said, investment tribunals often cite prior cases in support of their interpretations of the clause. This seminar explored how the standard has developed both in treaty-making practice and in the jurisprudence.

About the Speaker

J Christopher Thomas, Q.C. is a lawyer and Chartered Arbitrator who has practiced for many years in the field of international trade and commercial law with emphasis on trade and investment regulation and dispute settlement. He has been counsel in many international disputes, in domestic administrative law procedures (anti-dumping and countervailing duty cases), and in contentious proceedings before the superior courts of Canada. He now acts primarily as an arbitrator in international investment, trade and commercial disputes. He is Editor of Investor-State LawGuide, an on-line research database which is being launched in February 2011. He was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 2002 and has been designated a Chartered Arbitrator by the ADR Institute of Canada.