Abstract

In its 2018 Achmea ruling, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) found intra-European Union (EU) investment arbitration incompatible with EU law, and in its 2019 opinion on the proposed Canada–EU Trade Agreement (CETA), the ECJ has set out requirements for the recognition by the EU of investor–State arbitration at large. On the other hand, in the last few years a great many tribunals (under both International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and non-ICSID regimes) have dealt with intra-EU investment arbitrations, most of them under the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT). None of these tribunals found the proceedings to be incompatible with EU law.The reason for this discrepancy is that the tribunals deal with investors’ rights, while the ECJ, in contrast, is concerned with intra-EU governance issues. However, individual rights are not alien to EU law. Against that background, this note is based on the established finding that investment treaties bestow private investors with individual rights under public international law. These rights need to be taken seriously: as third parties, investors can, under both public international law and EU law, draw upon these rights, irrespective of the internal EU governance rules with which the ECJ was concerned. Hence, this note2² is not meant to be a further contribution to the voluminous debate on the internal EU governance rules drawn upon by the ECJ. In contrast, it is based on the binding effect on the EU of the investors’ individual rights. Furthermore, it shows that the ECJ’s rulings do not have an adverse precedent effect on the pursuit of investors’ rights and that, in addition, the ECT meets the criteria under which the ECJ has assessed EU compatibility of investment arbitration. Last but not least, the denial by EU institutions of investors' rights under the ECT may, in itself, constitute an infringement of the ECT.

中文翻译：

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认真对待投资者的权利：欧洲法院的 Achmea 和 CETA 裁决并不禁止欧盟内部的投资仲裁

摘要

在其 2018 年Achmea裁决中，欧洲法院 (ECJ) 认定欧盟内部 (EU) 投资仲裁不符合欧盟法律，并且在其 2019 年关于拟议的加拿大-欧盟贸易协定 (CETA) 的意见中，欧洲法院对欧盟普遍承认投资者与国家之间的仲裁。另一方面，在过去几年中，许多法庭（在国际投资争端解决中心 (ICSID) 和非 ICSID 制度下）处理了欧盟内部的投资仲裁，其中大部分是根据能源宪章条约 (ECT)。这些法庭都没有发现程序不符合欧盟法律。这种差异的原因是法庭处理投资者的权利，而欧洲法院则相反，关注欧盟内部的治理问题。然而，个人权利并不与欧盟法律格格不入。在此背景下，本说明基于既定结论，即投资条约赋予私人投资者国际公法下的个人权利。需要认真对待这些权利：作为第三方，投资者可以根据无论欧洲法院所关注的欧盟内部治理规则如何，国际公法和欧盟法律都利用这些权利。因此，本说明^{2 2}并不意味着对欧洲法院援引的关于欧盟内部治理规则的大量辩论作出进一步贡献。相反，它是基于投资者个人权利对欧盟的约束力。此外，它表明欧洲法院的裁决对追求投资者权利没有不利的先例影响，此外，ECT 符合欧洲法院评估欧盟投资仲裁兼容性的标准。最后但并非最不重要的一点是，欧盟机构否认投资者在 ECT 下的权利本身可能构成对 ECT 的侵犯。