Foreign investor rights during economic crisis

Dr Ioannis Glinavos is Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Westminster. He has taught on International Commercial Arbitration since 2008 and has written on Investment Treaty Arbitration, with his latest arbitration paper published in the Journal of International Dispute Settlement in 2014.

Dr Glinavos is currently focusing on investment arbitrations in the European Periphery. The research investigates claims brought in investment treaty tribunals (such as ICSID) against countries in the European Periphery to protect measures taken as a response to economic crisis. The aim of this research is to map the impact of ISDS (Investor State Dispute Settlement) provisions in bilateral and multilateral instruments on European nations in order to assess restrictions on sovereignty and impacts on the investment climate. The research so far has produced two analyses, one on actions against Greece for the Greek haircut on sovereign debt, and one on actions against Spain for changes to clean energy incentives. The next topic of investigation will be actions brought against Greece and the ECB for the effects of the provision of (or lack thereof) emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) to foreign owned banks.