PhD defence
The Powers of International Investment Tribunals
- C. Pharaon
- Date
- Wednesday 18 February 2026
- Time
- Address
-
Academy Building
Rapenburg 73
2311 GJ Leiden
Supervisor(s)
Summary
This thesis explores the nature, scope, and limits of the powers exercised by international tribunals mandated to resolve disputes between States and foreign investors. Its main objective is to test the hypothesis that these powers are shaped by prevailing economic and social values embedded within the power structures influencing the creation and application of international investment norms.
The research demonstrates how the social transformations following the Second World War, coupled with the widespread embrace of liberal economic values by dominant power structures, culminating in the unipolar international order of the 1990s, played a decisive role in defining the powers of international investment tribunals at that time. It argues that this paradigm entailed a redistribution of what was once the exclusive domain of sovereign authority on the international stage, giving rise to a new balance of powers reflecting liberal economic thought.
The thesis further analyses the profound global economic and social transformations that have unfolded in recent decades, alongside shifts in global power dynamics. Its comprehensive review of the diverse reforms undertaken reveals that the evolution of the investor-State dispute settlement (‘ISDS’) system has been relatively slow and, in contrast to the 1990s, rather disharmonious, reflecting a fragmented and upended world order. On this basis, the thesis examines how the gap between the contours of international investment tribunals’ powers and changing social and economic values, not (yet) fully embraced by power structures, contributes to the system’s crisis of legitimacy, and considers its likely and desirable evolutions.
PhD dissertations
Approximately one week after the defence, PhD dissertations by Leiden PhD students are available digitally through the Leiden Repository, that offers free access to these PhD dissertations. Please note that in some cases a dissertation may be under embargo temporarily and access to its full-text version will only be granted later.
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