Document Type : Article
Author
Ph.D in International Law, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Many investment host-states, invoking the spread of the coronavirus and the need to deal with Covid-19, have taken over the assets of private companies, forced them to make certain goods, intervened in their pricing, stopped their products, prevented export of their products and forced some to close their activities. In some cases, host-states may in fact expropriate the foreign investments for political, social, and economic reasons, such as reducing social pressures, increasing the possibility of success in elections, and acquiring low-cost, profitable investments, but invoke the need to combat the pandemics in order to mislead the arbitral tribunals. Since the host state have frequently sought to justify non-compliance with their treaty obligations by resorting to crises such as the outbreak of Covid-19, this article, referring to the investment treaties, doctrine and arbitration practices, and in order to strike a balance between interests of the investor and the host-state, in the first part, discusses the possibility, manner and arguments for filing a claim for expropriation by foreign investors by invoking the host-state measures in the situation of outbreak of pandemics including Covid-19, and in the second part, investigates the means of compensation for expropriation in the above-mentioned claims.
Keywords
English
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