علی شهبازیان

Many investment host-states, invoking the spread of the coronavirus and the need to deal with Covid-19, have taken over the assets of private companies, forced them to make certain goods, intervened in their pricing, stopped their products, prevented export of their products and forced some to close their activities. In some cases, host-states may in fact expropriate the foreign investments for political, social, and economic reasons, such as reducing social pressures, increasing the possibility of success in elections, and acquiring low-cost, profitable investments, but invoke the need to combat the pandemics in order to mislead the arbitral tribunals. Since the host state have frequently sought to justify non-compliance with their treaty obligations by resorting to crises such as the outbreak of Covid-19, this article, referring to the investment treaties, doctrine and arbitration practices, and in order to strike a balance between interests of the investor and the host-state, in the first part, discusses the possibility, manner and arguments for filing a claim for expropriation by foreign investors by invoking the host-state measures in the situation of outbreak of pandemics including Covid-19, and in the second part, investigates the means of compensation for expropriation in the above-mentioned claims.

Despite increasing armed conflicts and the resulting damages to civilians, including foreign investors, no specific regime has been envisaged in international law to compensate for such damages to investors. As a result, for reparation of damages caused by armed conflicts, investors resort to the so-called war clause in investment treaties as well as the general international law on reparation for wrongful acts. But this practice, as will be argued, has many ambiguities that may affect the rights of both the host state and the investor. While sovereignty considerations such as public order or national security can make it difficult to prove government responsibility in armed conflicts, the war clause provides an additional layer of protection for investors, but does not eliminate traditional investor-protection standards. All the same, the war clause makes the investor's right to reparation subject to strict requirements, such as proving the cause of damages and absence of military necessity, which is difficult in armed-conflict situations. It would be more sound to burden the state that has used military force with proving military necessity. In evaluating the damages, arbitration courts are expected to pay attention to emergency situation and its impact on the interests of both parties.

Given that in the event of outbreak of pandemics, especially in the case of Covid-19, all capacities of the countries are allocated to prevent the spread of the disease and maintain public health, it is obvious that host states in crisis situations cannot abide by all obligations they have assumed under Investment treaties for protection of foreign investor, as they do in normal situations, and even some of their preventive measures will cause damage to the investor. The investor's recourse to arbitration in the event of an outbreak of a pandemic or the possibility of filing action by an investor after controlling the disease can limit the measures a state can do to protect the lives of its citizens. With the aim of focusing of the host states on protecting the lives of citizens and the public health of society, this article, using a descriptive-analytical method, answers the question of what procedural and substantive defenses under investment treaties, the host state may assert against the investor's claims resulting from state measures in pandemic situations to protect its essential interests.

Protecting the Right to Health in Investment Claims Arising from PandemicsWith particular attention to Covid-19AbstractThe measures taken by the host states to control the pandemics, including Covid-19, are vital to maintaining the public health, but may lead to the numerous claims by foreign investors and payment of huge compensations, as a result of which ability of the host states to maintain the public health will be greatly limited. Given that the exception clause in respect of public health is mentioned only in a small number of investment treaties, in most claims arising from pandemics, host states cannot be exempted from responsibility under international investment law for measures they have taken to control the disease. Since restricting the host state to existing defenses in international investment law means a clear overcoming of the investor's interests over the interests of the host state and ignoring the right to health of the society, this article, adopting an explorative method, refers to the relevant documents in international law and arbitration practice to determine what defenses under international law would be available for the host state in order to maintain the right to health, if the investment treaties are silent, and what would be the requirements for the host state to assert any of such defenses.KeywordsPrinciple of police powers, Customary Defense of Necessity, Covid-19 Disease, Right to health, International Human Rights Law, International Investment Law, International Customary Law, Foreign Investment Claims, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Corona Virus

When a foreign investor is affected by armed conflict, the rules of international investment law on the protection of foreign investors and international humanitarian law on the protection of civilians, including foreign investors, are both valid and since there is no specific precedent in this regard, the arbitral tribunals may, at their discretion, in each case, prioritize one of them as special law and apply to the dispute. Given that the choice of each of these rules will result in a different level of protection for foreign investment, the main question of the present study is to determine which of the above rules is preferable to the other as special law and what are the implications of applying each one in such dispute and breach of which one can be invoked as the international responsibility of the host state to the investment. This paper analyzes the above question in an exploratory way to remove the legal gap regarding the conflict between international humanitarian law and international investment law in investment disputes arising from armed conflicts.