Study On The Review Scope Of ICSID Annulment System

The Washington Convention(hereinafter referred to as "ICSID Convention")endows the arbitral tribunal with sufficient discretion but fails to provide sufficient constraints,which is prone to cause inconsistent and uncertain awards,thus causing a crisis of legitimacy of the arbitration award of the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes(hereinafter referred to as "ICSID").At present,the ICSID annulment mechanism is the only remedy for the award under the ICSID investment arbitration mechanism.It only can review the violation of procedural law,and cannot review and revoke the case at the substantive level such as obvious legal or factual errors.ICSID’s review scope of arbitration annulment system cannot effectively balance the fairness and efficiency of investment arbitration.As early as the establishment of the ICSID Convention,the negotiation and the final agreement of the ICSID Convention provisions had certain compromise.On one hand,it emphasized the efficiency of arbitration;on the other hand,it hoped to avoid absolute injustice through procedural review.At present,ICSID annulment mechanism fails to resolve the crisis of investment arbitration mechanism,and its defects aggravate the crisis of the whole ICSID system to some extent.If it can be reformed in a good direction,it will promote the development of the whole ICSID.Based on the balance perspective of maintaining fairness and efficiency of ICSID annulment system,this paper mainly analyzes the annul procedure or substantive issue of ICSID annulment system.Through the viewpoints and practices of academic and practical circles,this paper analyzes the problems caused by the ambiguity of ICSID ad hoc annulment committees and holds that the annulment procedure should focus on procedure review and include some substantive review in order to effectively deal with the problems existing in the current investment arbitration annulment mechanism.In the first chapter,this paper introduces and analyzes the requirements of ICSID arbitration annulment system and its starting procedure,and holds that the constitution of its provisions and the setting of the annulment period foreshadows its disadvantages.Secondly,this paper summarized and analyzed the reasons for the annulment of CMS,Rumeli,CDC,Sempra and other cases heard by the ad hoc Committees through the positioning analysis of the scope of annulment in the academic circle.At present,the fairness and efficiency problems of ICSID annulment system are mainly reflected in the procedural problems or substantive problems of ICSID annulment system review.Moreover,ICSID annulment system has many disadvantages due to the ambiguity of review authority,which requires us to clearly define the scope of review.In the second chapter,this paper analyzes the causes of imbalance between justice and efficiency caused by the scope of ICSID annul institutional review,which is closely related to the bias of value orientation towards efficiency and neglect of justice.In addition,the limitation of the scope of ICSID annulment grounds and the vagueness of the annulment grounds also lead to the lack of impartiality of ICSID annulment system.Moreover,the excessive discretion of the ICSID ad hoc annulment committees and the confusion of personnel have a negative impact on the review of ICSID annulment system.In the third chapter,this paper makes a comprehensive analysis of the reform plan of ICSID arbitration annulment system.In terms of the positioning of the scope of review of ICSID annulment system,the current reform plan is to self-repair the ICSID annulment system and build an appeal mechanism through improved ways.Self-repair is embodied in clarifying the scope of ICSID annulment review to achieve a balance between fairness and efficiency.In addition,when considering the feasibility of the appeal scheme,we also need to consider what impact the establishment of the appeal mechanism will have on the ICSID annulment system.The overall orientation of the reform is to balance "fairness" and "efficiency" as the basic principle,and to consider the feasibility of the reform plan in a short time when dealing with the disadvantages of the current ICSID annulment system.Finally,by comprehensive comparison of the analysis of the above reform paths,it is concluded that the self-repair of ICSID annulment mechanism is the optimal choice,and it is more feasible to construct an appeal mechanism in terms of scheme implementation and feasibility.Finally,this paper concludes that the original efficiency value orientation of ICSID annulment system has been unable to adapt to the development of investment arbitration,and it is urgent to give ICSID annulment system a procedural review from the perspective of justice,with the review of some substantive issues.Such incidental substantive review shall be defined in accordance with the provisions of Article 52(1)of the ICSID Convention,such as "the Tribunal has manifestly exceeded its powers","there has been a serious departure from a fundamental rule of procedure","the award has failed to state the reasons on which it is based." and shall be further defined by the rules of interpretation issued by ICSID.To strike a balance between fairness and efficiency under ICSID arbitration.