UNCITRAL and ISDS Reform: Lifelong Learning

How many International Investment Disputes have there been since 1973? How many International Investment Disputes are ongoing now? We do not know. There is no authoritative count. How many treaty-based awards issued by arbitral tribunals since 2000 are not publicly available? Again, nothing authoritative can be said except that a sizeable percentage of such awards are not available. The important work of Investment Arbitration Reporter and others mean that we have informal knowledge about the existence of many cases. But our frequent inability to answer even basic questions about the full universe is a salutary reminder that we – as a scholarly community and as a policymaking community – know less than is ideal about investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS).