Remarks on Breaches of State Contracts for the Purposes of Jurisdiction and Admissibility in International Investment Arbitration

The contribution addresses the age-old issue of the relevance of State contracts in international law from the standpoint of international investment arbitration. The main focus of the following analysis will be on the question whether international adjudicative bodies - with special regard to investment arbitration tribunals - may be validly seised for breach of a State contract with a foreign investor by the host State. This analysis will be conducted in the light of the following three basic premises. First, the contract is governed by the domestic law of the host State; second, municipal law is tantamount to a fact before an international tribunal; third, ‘[t]he characterization of an act of a State as internationally wrongful is governed by international law’.