Part V Remedies and Costs, 24 Interim Relief in Investment Treaty Arbitration

This chapter reviews the requirements for a party to obtain interim relief from an arbitral tribunal, the measures that can be ordered, their nature, and effects. It also considers whether the parties to the dispute can seek interim relief from domestic courts rather than from the arbitral tribunal. The scope of the interim relief available in the context of investor-state disputes is broad enough to meet the parties’ legitimate needs for temporary protection, subject to limitations which may be found in the relevant treaty, such as the ones contained in NAFTA Article 1134. However, applicants are also faced with a high threshold when seeking to establish that the interim relief requested is urgent and needed. This may explain the reluctance of many tribunals to grant interim relief in the context of investor-state arbitration, whether in the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Dispute (ICSID) system or under the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law Rules.