Taking Investors’ Rights Seriously: The Achmea and CETA Rulings of the European Court of Justice do not Bar Intra-EU Investment Arbitration

Abstract

In its 2018 Achmea ruling, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) found intra-European Union (EU) investment arbitration incompatible with EU law, and in its 2019 opinion on the proposed Canada–EU Trade Agreement (CETA), the ECJ has set out requirements for the recognition by the EU of investor–State arbitration at large. On the other hand, in the last few years a great many tribunals (under both International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and non-ICSID regimes) have dealt with intra-EU investment arbitrations, most of them under the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT). None of these tribunals found the proceedings to be incompatible with EU law. The reason for this discrepancy is that the tribunals deal with investors’ rights, while the ECJ, in contrast, is concerned with intra-EU governance issues. However, individual rights are not alien to EU law. Against that background, this note is based on the established finding that investment treaties bestow private investors with individual rights under public international law. These rights need to be taken seriously: as third parties, investors can, under both public international law and EU law, draw upon these rights, irrespective of the internal EU governance rules with which the ECJ was concerned. Hence, this note2 is not meant to be a further contribution to the voluminous debate on the internal EU governance rules drawn upon by the ECJ. In contrast, it is based on the binding effect on the EU of the investors’ individual rights. Furthermore, it shows that the ECJ’s rulings do not have an adverse precedent effect on the pursuit of investors’ rights and that, in addition, the ECT meets the criteria under which the ECJ has assessed EU compatibility of investment arbitration. Last but not least, the denial by EU institutions of investors' rights under the ECT may, in itself, constitute an infringement of the ECT.