Arbitration before the International Centre For Settlement of Investment Disputes

This paper discusses several aspects of arbitration before the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (“ICSID” or the “Centre”). ICSID is a sister organization in the World Bank group that shares in that institution's goal of promoting economic development through greater flows of international investment. In many ways it is a unique institution in the field of international dispute resolution, as it was established to fulfill a particular need in the global economic community consistent with its World Bank pedigree. It is, therefore, useful to begin by briefly describing ICSID's origin and the role it was designed to perform as an introduction to some of the pragmatic topics of interest to potential users of the Centre.