International Arbitration and the Energy Transition

This book offers a broad definition of the energy transition, going beyond its climate origins to include energy security, affordability concerns and the impacts of the digital economy. It explores the multiplication of disputes triggered by policies of phasing in and phasing out certain forms of energies, and how international arbitration has responded to this exponential increase in disputes among investors, states, and civil society. Investments in this sector tend to be large and long-term, but international law protections have been weakened by many states. The book reviews the new landscape of investor protections in treaties and long-term contracts. The book explores the changing role of the State in setting the rules for investment, as new forms of infrastructure are deemed ‘critical’ or ‘strategic’, in the context of growing international competition, and vulnerability of global supply chains. Uncertainty about the scope and timing of interventions requires a shift in the current international investment law regime if investments are to mobilize to drive forward the energy transition. The preferred mode of resolving disputes – both contract and treaty based - remains international arbitration. The book critically reviews the many changes introduced by international and regional arbitration centres to improve the operation of this key mechanism. The approach of this book is twofold: it examines energy disputes in each energy sector (Part 2) and by means of an analysis of seminal, highly controversial cases it examines how international arbitration has addressed the energy transition to date. This is a key resource to understand how the energy transition is impacting on the resolution of disputes, procedurally as well as substantively in the face of geopolitical headwinds and the growing impact of the digital economy.