Most-Favoured-Nation Treatment: Survival Clauses and Reform of International Investment Law

Development summary

In her Journal of International Arbitration article, Catharine Titi discusses how most-favoured-nation (MFN) treatment and survival clauses in international investment agreements may affect reform of investment law. She explains that MFN clauses, which guarantee non-discrimination, can have far-reaching implications for newly negotiated provisions, particularly where an agreement grants pre-establishment rights and the clause expressly covers ‘all matters’ within the treaty. Survival clauses, which extend an agreement’s validity after its termination, may delay the introduction of new options by an average of five to twenty years after the expiry of the treaty’s minimum period of application.