As part of ongoing initiatives towards restructuring its bilateral investment treaty regime, the Indian government has recently approached 25 countries – with whom the initial duration of treaty is not yet over – to sign a joint interpretative statement to clarify ambiguities in the existing treaty texts. The objective of this move is to minimize the possibility of arbitral tribunals interpreting the treaty provisions vastly different from what the contracting parties originally had in mind when they signed these treaties.

These 25 countries are Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brunei, China, Colombia, Finland, Iceland, Jordan, Kuwait, Laos, Latvia, Libya, Lithuania, Macedonia, Mexico, Mozambique, Myanmar, Saudi…

On July 6, 2016, the Dutch government announced that it has received an official notification from Indian authorities seeking termination of the bilateral investment protection treaty (BIT) signed between the Netherlands and India in 1995. The Netherlands is not the only country which has received notice of termination. India has recently served similar termination notices to as many as 57 countries (including the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Sweden) with whom the initial duration of the treaty has either expired or will expire soon.

For the remaining 25 countries (such as China, Finland and Mexico) with whom the initial duration of the treaty will…

Britain has voted to leave the European Union. In a referendum held on Thursday (June 23), close to 52 per cent of Britons favored leaving the EU. The referendum results reveal that the arguments put forward by Brexiters found greater resonance with the sentiments of ordinary people than the ones put forward by pro-European camps, the establishment and world leaders.

Before the polls closed, the UK’s political establishment was expecting that overwhelming voters would vote to stay in the EU. In the same vein, most media analysts and market observers were predicting a win for Remain camp. Even Nigel Farage, leader of far right-wing UK…

On  April 29, 2016, India’s income tax department released tax statistics after a gap of almost 16 years. Till 2000, the tax department used to publish All India Income Tax Statistics but the publication was discontinued for some unknown reasons. No explanations were given by the authorities for the discontinuation of this publication despite numerous demands made for its release by Indian economists and researchers.

According to media reports, the government released this data after French economist Thomas Piketty, author of bestseller Capital in the Twenty-First Century, highlighted the need for greater data transparency to carry out research on income inequalities in India. During his trip…

A spate of mega-regional trade agreements with strong investment protection standards have been recently concluded or are currently under negotiations. The TPP (Transpacific Partnership) and TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Agreement) are prime examples of this growing trend. Way back in 1959, Germany and Pakistan signed the first Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) in the world. Without knowing, they marked a new era as many countries have followed their example since then. Currently, the international legal system that governs international investment flows consists of about 3000 BITs and other international investment agreements (IIAs).

In recent years, however, a large number of countries have faced costly international…