Study On The Application Of “Res Judicata” And “Lis Pendens”

With the increasing number of investors and countries bounded by the investment treaties, the conflicts and disputes between them are unavoidable. Meanwhile, because of the meaning scope of “investment” expanded,shopping forum, more than one investor can initiate an court procedure or an arbitration. In such circumstance, the parallel proceedingsare generated.Generally, in the international investment dispute settlement procedures, forms of parallel proceedings can be divided into two kinds. First, the undergoing of remedy procedure of domestic and international dispute proceeding at the same time or successively; Second, the undergoing of different international dispute settlement proceedings at the same time or successively.The risks parallel proceedings brings, such as the completely contradictory decisions or judgments and unpredictable awards have been noticed and concerned, at the same time, the study of possible solutions to parallel proceedings has more realistic meanings. One of the possible solutions what will be discussed and analyzed here is the application of “res judicata” and “lis pendens”.“Res judicata” and “lis pendens” have been accepted as the well-established and generally recognized basic principle of international law. But the application’s conditions of “res judicata” and “lis pendens” have not been probed into a conclusion. The general two conditions are “between the same parties” and “regarding the same subject matter”. In this article, by reciting the cases such as Lauder/CME v. Czech Republic, Waste Management v. United Mexican States to analyzing the defects emerge from the application of the two general conditions.On this basis, combine the general conditions with civil procedural law theories to discuss the specific application items during the procedures. In this article, the parallel proceedings is divided into three stages,and each stage has its own application items according to its characteristics. The application of “Res judicata” and “lis pendens” shall be on the same legal ground and the arbitration between country and invertors is on the same legal ground with international courts and arbitrations also have been argued in this article.In face of the investment parallel proceedings,China shall get ready for it. In the last part of this article, some advises have been made to the Chinese investors and the Chinese government in how to deal with the future dispute settlement clause in BITs.