The Role of Investment Arbitration in Conceptulization and Intrepretation of the Principle of Public Participation in Oil Disputes

Implementing the principle of public participation in oil disputes requires that individuals or groups of public who are not parties to arbitration can participate through presentation of written submission, access to important arbitration documents and attendance in arbitration hearings.The rules of international arbitration in the recent reforms and bilateral investment treaties in the new generation have taken the course of implementing this principle.This article seeks to analyze implementation of the principle of participation in the framework of arbitration proceedings. In this paper,two petroleum cases has been reviewd.One has been ruled by a arbitration tribunal to enforce the principle of public participation and the other have rejected this principle.The study indicates,firstly,the importance of stipulating the principle of participation in arbitration rules and investment treaties, and secondly lack of willingness of tribunals to implement the rule of article 31(3) of the Vienna Convention.In LonePine v.Canada, despite the investor's disagreement, tribunal accepted the written submission of the two NGOs on the basis of ICSID Article37 and NAFTA's statement.Contrary, in Chevron v.Ecuador,the public were not allowed to participate.The silence of the Ecuador-US BIT as well as the implicit authority set forth in Article 15 of UNCITRAL(1976) could be regarded as grounds for the rejection.