On 31 January 2019, Herbert Smith Freehills kindly hosted in
London the 4th EFILA Annual
Conference on the “European Union (EU) and the future of International
Investment Law and Arbitration”. The EU’s external investment policy and its
investment policy towards Asia featured as the topics of the first two panels,
which were followed by a keynote speech on the construction of a Multilateral
Investment Court (MIC). The conference’s last panel dealt with the EU’s energy
investment policy. This report presents the most relevant developments behind
the EU’s external investment policy until the end of January 2019, its
implementation towards Asia and influence in new global trends in
investor-State dispute settlement. Further, it confronts the arguments of
followers and detractors of the idea of a permanent standing two-tier mechanism
with full-time adjudicators, which is promoted by the EU as the only option
that can successfully respond to all the problems and challenges of the current ad hoc system. Finally, it conveys both the EU’ and investors’ needs
in the construction of new carbon-friendly infrastructure and their enquiries
into the modernisation process of the Energy Charter Treaty.