Would The Establishment OF Appellate Body Be Effective In Helping The ICSID Improve Its Enforcement Mechanism?

In order to promote the de-politicization and legalization of investment disputes, and provides international legal methods of resolving international investment disputes, the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (hereafter referred to as "the ICSID") was established in 1966, under the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes Between States and Nationals of Other States (hereafter referred to as "the Washington Convention"). By far it has basically accomplished its goal as the "world’s leading institution devoted to investor-state dispute settlements", but it is facing the threats and challenges in its enforcement mechanism.Even though it is clearly regulated in the Washington Convention that disputing parties are obliged to enforce arbitral awards since they have consented to submit their disputes to the ICSID, some states refuse to enforce arbitral awards. They question the legitimacy of the ICSID in settling international investment disputes, and the inconsistency and impartiality of arbitral awards. Some Latin American states, including Argentina, even claim that their breach of Bilateral Investment Treaties (hereafter referred to as "BITs") are resulted from the 2001 financial crisis, and Argentina insist that arbitral awards should be reviewed by its constitutional court, which is against the ICSID enforcement mechanism. In order to solve the above problems, scholars and experts in international investment disputes argue strongly that the ICSID should establish the appellate body in response to the legitimacy crisis and inconsistent arbitral awards.However, the appellate body is not a panacea, nor the best option to solve the inadequacy in enforcement mechanism of the ICSID. This dissertation is intended to examine possible reasons of inadequate enforcement mechanism, and whether the establishment of appellate would help improve the enforcement mechanism, as well as possible modification and improvement of the ICSID mechanism in order to improve the sufficiency of enforcement.The annulment mechanism in the ICSID can be modified and could adopt new rules regarding inconsistency and impartiality of arbitral awards. BITs and Multilateral Investment Treaties (hereafter referred to as "MITs") should be updated to define clearly the rights and obligations between contracting parties. These modification could be conducted in the existing mechanism, instead of the new appellate body.Even though the establishment of a new appellate body may prove to improve the consistency and accuracy of arbitral awards, the weakness of the appellate body cannot be ignored. It will ruin the efficiency of the arbitration process and the finality of its arbitral awards. Disputing parties are attracted by the arbitration mechanism in that the arbitral process is fast and efficient, and its award is final. If the appellate body is established, more time would be consumed, and the time spent would be longer than schedule time, according to the experience of the World Trade Organization Appellate Body. The appellate mechanism would then delay the settlement of disputes and even undermine future cooperation between disputing states.The establishment of the appellate body has no unique and remarkable advantages, compared to the modification of the existing mechanism. If the advantage of establishing appellate mechanism cannot outweigh the disadvantage, the establishment would not be a wise option. Moreover, the establishment of a new body in the ICSID is faced with a more practical problem of "a stringent majority requirements" that requires the approval of most member states. This goal can hardly be reached at present due to the inadequate experience and divergent opinions between member states.