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UNCITRAL Rules on Transparency in Treaty-Based
Investor- State Arbitration
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Att. Mehves Erdem
Introduction
In July 2013 the United Nations Commission on International
Trade Law (“UNCITRAL”) adopted rules for Treaty-based Investor-
State arbitration to provide transparency (“Rules”). The rules came
into force on April 1, 2014. The Rules are considered as an important
step taken in the evolving field of investment arbitration considering
that previous versions of UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules do not refer to
issues of transparency even in cases of strong public policy.
The origins of the Rules came from the idea to amend the UNCI-
TRAL Arbitration Rules; it was considered that a revision including
transparency should be adopted. Following extensive debates the
Working Group decided that commercial arbitration and investment
arbitration differ from one another in certain aspects, which lead to the
designation of separate rules for investment arbitrations in terms of
transparency of the proceedings and the award. The Working Group
further agreed that the amendments which were made to the UNCI-
TRAL Arbitration Rules should be continued notwithstanding the
transparency issues and further it was not desired to include investor
state specific rules in the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules and decided
to address issues of transparency after completing the work on the
UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules in depth
1
.
The Rules include eight articles which govern the scope of appli-
cation, publication of information and documents, submission of the
third parties and by non-disputing party to the treaty, hearings, excep-
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Article of July 2015
1
See A/CN.9/646 para. 69.