حمید رضا نیک بخت

At the present time in the text of many international contracts in which one party is the State and the other party is a foreign private sector, and known as State contracts, and mainly are investment contracts there exists a condition concerned with arbitration as the means of dispute settlement. Therefore, international arbitration has become the most common process for resolving disputes regarding these contracts. Although basically the main regulations of these arbitrations are the international commercial arbitration rules of institutional and ad hoc arbitrations, some developments have been occurred in these rules in recent years due to the presence of the States. The new establishment of "amicus curiae", which is a phenomenon in the court proceedings in some countries, in the system of investment arbitration has been counted as one of the most important developments of the arbitration system. "Amicus curiae" is a third person, other than the parties, to a lawsuit who has an interest in the decision of the court, and request the court or is requested by the court to file a brief in the action. In this article, thus, it has been tried to introduce this phenomenon and to analyze the role it plays in recent investment arbitrations as well as its function.

Today, the arbitration regime for dispute settlement based on international investment treaties faces many challenges. One of the most obvious concerns is the lack of transparency in this regime, which has become the subject of differences in theories in recent years. This issue is so serious in some theories that it points the inherent principles of confidentiality and privacy of arbitration, and on the other hand, it has undermined the stability, reliability and predictability of international investment arbitration, and ultimately challenges the legitimacy of this system.In recent years transparance has been put under scrutinies by different relevant authorities to be rectified and improved. This article focuses on the Investor-State arbitration, while examining the various forms of transparency in the international investment arbitration process, and evaluates the latest developments regarding transparency in arbitration based on investment treaties. Then, by examining the potential risks of transparency and its ultimate goals, it proposes a series of strategies to adapt the process of procedural transparency reforms to achieve its goals. These solutions should be considered gradually in this kind of arbitration in order to clarify the continuity and persistence of transparency in international investment arbitration proceedings and, at the same time, maintain privacy and confidentiality advantage in arbitration.