Mauritius: One-day Conference on Investor-State Arbitration

A conference which is addressing issues relating to investor-State arbitration and human rights; and Arbitration and Access to justice, opened this morning at Intercontinental Hotel, Balaclava.  Around 200 participants (local and foreign) are attending the event.

The Conference will be followed by the signature ceremony of the United Nations Convention on Transparency in Treaty-based Investor-State Arbitration (Mauritius Convention on Transparency).

The Convention is an instrument by which Parties to investment treaties express their consent to apply the Rules on Transparency in Treaty-based Investor-State Arbitration of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) to their existing investment promotion and protection agreements concluded before 1st April 2014.

Speaking at the opening of the conference, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade, Mr Etienne Sinatambou, stressed the importance of transparency in Treaty-based investor-State Arbitration, while commending the UNCITRAL’s ongoing work on transparency.

The signing in Mauritius of the United Nations Convention on Transparency in Treaty-based Investor-State Arbitration, also known as the ‘Mauritius Convention on Transparency’ is a matter of pride for any Mauritian, official, as well as the Government, said the Minister.  According to him, when Mauritius embarked into attempting to become an arbitration hub it was not a matter to compete with the rest of the world but to establish partnerships with other countries.  He also expressed conviction that what we are going to do today and what we have done in the last 25 years are complementary.

For his part, the Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and Legal Counsel of the UN, Mr Miguel de Serpa Soares, observed that Mauritius is a country that has truly embraced international arbitration as an effective method of resolving commercial and investment disputes.

As regards the UNCITRAL Rules on Transparency, the Under-Secretary-General observed that these rules represent a fundamental change from the status quo of investment arbitrations often conducted behind closed doors and hidden from the public view, even when the issues being raised gather much attention from the public and the media.  ‘All in all, I firmly believe that the conclusion of the Mauritius Convention is a momentous occasion in the field of investment arbitration’, he said.

Presentations during the one-day conference focused on the following: How to ensure that human rights norms and standards inform law-making related to trade and investment at the national level; Transparency, accountability and access to information as important values in treaty-based, investor-State arbitration; Mauritius Convention on Transparency, a means to effectively address issues in the field of treaty-based investor-State arbitration; Places for regional arbitration – The experience of Mauritius; Investment arbitration in Africa; General framework – UN contributions to the development of arbitration; and the Relevance of transparency for setting up dispute settlement mechanisms.