Very important work, thank you for sharing. Helpful in dispelling the myth that we "need" ISDS to facilitate the energy transition - if we want a just transition, what we need is to get rid of ISDS!

And he will claim the process to decide whether he could build a shed was “unfair” and no on the panel will ask about how he tried to manipulate the outcome. And no one will discuss the dangers of sheds. And those most hurt by sheds will have no say…so yeah, great system you are defending!

So the man, who is not from this city and doesn’t think the local courts are good enough for him, goes to an arbitration panel and asks for many many times the amount that he spent trying to build a shed. And he gets to pick one of the arbitrators, so he can make sure it is someone who likes sheds.

Despite all this effort, he doesn’t get all the necessary permits and is caught up in multiple court cases. Then a new Mayor is elected who wants the city to move away from sheds for good and he revokes one of the many approvals needed to build the shed.

He nevertheless does everything he can to stack the decision making in his favour - he donates big money to city councillors and has his friends hired to review the costs and benefits of his shed. He pays for advertising to convince everyone that sheds are great and that the city needs more sheds!

A man wants to build a shed even though he knows that doing so threatens the future of all life on the planet and that he is taking a big risk because people don’t like sheds anymore and are looking for safer alternatives. There are even international agreements about stopping sheds!

We call this tactic feigned victimization. Fossil fuel companies can use this tactic to extract huge sums of money in arbitration.

We illustrate our argument through an empirical case study of TC Energy’s US$15 billion ISDS claim against the US in relation to the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

@fergusgreen.bsky.social and I argue that the asymmetric treatment of state and investor behaviour in #ISDS allows investors to depict themselves as innocent victims of “unfair” and “unforeseeable” “political” processes, despite being active political players and sophisticated risk managers

In it, we argue that G7 countries should move beyond the current piecemeal approach to reform of the international investment regime and initiate the negotiation of a plurilateral agreement aimed at removing ISDS from international investment agreements.

That’s the plan at the moment!

3. How can minilaterals have an impact outside of their membership?

We are keen to involve scholars (including early career researchers) and practitioners (e.g., those working in groups like Beyond Oil & Gas Alliance).

If this is of interest to you, please reach out to me at kt71@queensu.ca

The questions we want to address are:
1. Once created, how can minilaterals be expanded in terms of both membership and level of ambition?
2. How can minilaterals overcome the challenges they face in terms of ensuring equity and fairness within their membership?