The New Trend Of The Revision Of ICSID Arbitration Rules And Its Enlightenment To China

The International Centre for Investment Dispute Resolution(hereinafter referred to as ICSID),as a permanent institution for the settlement of national investment disputes between Contracting States and other Contracting States,is the main platform for the specific operation of the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism(hereinafter referred to as the ISDS mechanism),but the institutional flaws of ICSID have caused many problems in practice.In the new round of amendments to the ICSID Arbitration Rules,ICSID proposed to address three main issues: improving the transparency of arbitration procedures,ensuring the consistency of arbitral awards,and safeguarding the balance of interests between investors and host countries.Compared with the North American Free Trade Agreement(hereinafter referred to as NAFTA)and the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement(hereinafter referred to as CETA),the revised trend of ICSID mainly focuses on the balance between privacy and transparency.It is further liberalized in document disclosure and participation of amicus curiae,increasing citizens' right to know and reducing the discretion of the arbitral tribunal.Secondly,ICSID guarantees the consistency of arbitral awards by refining internal remedies such as corrections and revocations,but does not consider establishing an appeal mechanism.Furthermore,ICSID protects the balance of interests between investors and host countries by increasing transparency,unifying rules of interpretation,and enhancing the impartiality of arbitrators,but does not add other alternative dispute resolution measures.This paper takes the arbitration rules of China's International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission and the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement as an example.Compared with the rules of ICSID,NAFTA and CETA,it is found that China's system design is more conservative on the issue of transparency,and the rules are not detailed enough.When there is aninconsistency in the ruling,it is mainly through internal remedies,which can only be corrected after being reviewed by the arbitral tribunal.In addition,the provisions on safeguarding the balance of interests between investors and host countries are not operational.Therefore,China should increase the scope and form of document disclosure in the formulation of rules,and refine the transparency rules to establish a public information management system.In addition,the appeal clause should be set up to correct the errors in the arbitration through the appeal review mechanism to ensure the consistency of the awards;And we should try our best to develop other flexible and selective dispute resolution methods,so that the two parties to the dispute actively communicate and solve related problems,and balance the interests of investors and host countries as much as possible.