As climate change and urban development are closely interlinked and often interact negatively, this edited volume takes Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), Vietnam's first mega-urban region as a case study to analyse its vulnerability to climate change and to suggest measures towards a more sustainable urban development. The book offers an overview on land use planning regarding the aspects of urban flooding, urban climate, urban energy and urban mobility as well as spatial views from the angle of urban planning such as the metropolitan level, the city, the neighbourhood and building level. It shows that to a significant degree, measures dealing with climate change can be taken from the toolbox of sustainable urban development and reflects how institutional structures need to change to enhance chances for implementation given socio-cultural and economic constraints. This is merged and integrated into a holistic perspective of planning recommendations, supporting the municipal government to increase its adaptive capacity. The authors are members of a German government funded research project on how to support HCMC's municipal government to adapt to risks related to climate change.

International law on sovereign defaults is underdeveloped because States have largely refrained from adjudicating disputes arising out of public debt. The looming new wave of sovereign defaults is likely to shift dispute resolution away from national courts to international tribunals and transform the current regime for restructuring sovereign debt. Michael Waibel assesses how international tribunals balance creditor claims and sovereign capacity to pay across time. The history of adjudicating sovereign defaults internationally over the last 150 years offers a rich repository of experience for future cases: US state defaults, quasi-receiverships in the Dominican Republic and Ottoman Empire, the Venezuela Preferential Case, the Soviet repudiation in 1917, the League of Nations, the World War Foreign Debt Commission, Germany's 30-year restructuring after 1918 and ICSID arbitration on Argentina's default in 2001. The remarkable continuity in international practice and jurisprudence suggests avenues for building durable institutions capable of resolving future sovereign defaults.

One may debate whether the tremors of a systemic crisis in investment arbitration are real, and, if so, of a great enough magnitude to shake its foundations, but it is no longer possible to deny that the current system is coming under intensive scrutiny. International lawyers, who recognize the indispensability of a well-functioning system for settling investment disputes, should be concerned about enhancing the legitimacy and functionality of investment arbitration. A well-calibrated response to the challenges facing investment arbitration is essential to ensuring its long-term future. Critics must be answered; enquiries made; reassessments undertaken. If crucial questions continue to be ignored, or simply glossed over, the strength of, and consequences flowing from, the backlash are likely to be greater in scale. This book, which grew out of a conference held at Harvard Law School in April 2008, aims to uncover the concerns driving the backlash against the present international investment regime. Thirty-one contributors - academics, practitioners, government officials and representatives of civil society - analyze both the current state and future direction of the international investment regime, and offer valuable insights into possible ways of improving the system. The concerns fuelling the backlash, and addressed in this book, include: - shrinking of domestic policy space - competitive pressures to sign investment treaties as a reason why increased investment flows may prove elusive - inflexibility of treaty obligations and lack of coordinated responses to changing circumstances, especially in financial crises - renegotiation and termination of bilateral investment treaties - lack of democratic accountability and pro-investor bias - pervasive secrecy and confidentiality of arbitral proceedings - conflicts of interest and the continuing quest for effective rules governing the conduct of arbitrator and counsel - reassessment of the traditionally perceived advantages of arbitration, such as speed, low cost, and neutrality - the extent of protection afforded to shareholders in connection with denial of benefits clauses - third parties as representatives of the public interest or advocates for organized private interests - relationship between EU law and BITs - restrictions on international arbitration in constitutional law - investment tainted by corruption; o transfer of funds clauses and exchange controls - and the practice of forum shopping Premised on the belief that an investment arbitration regime which is in listening mode and ready to adapt may draw tremendous strength from constructive criticism, the questions considered by the contributors, and relating to the sustainability and future direction of investment arbitration, demand serious attention from all stakeholders. The reforms and refinements suggested promise to bring substantial improvements to the present regime and, in so doing, could reverse the current trend towards a backlash. All stakeholders in investment arbitration will welcome and learn from this work.

Bringing together an interdisciplinary and international group of researchers working on a wide variety of cities throughout Asia, Latin America and Europe, this book addresses, rethinks and, in some cases, abandons the notions of formal and informal urbanism. This collection critically interrogates both the ways in which 'informal' and 'formal' are put to work in the governing and politicisation of cities, and their conceptual strengths and weaknesses. It does so by focusing on a wide variety of topics, from specific forms of housing and labour often traditionally linked to the formal/informal divide, to urban political negotiations, cultural practices, and ways of being in the city. The book takes stock of and reflects on how contemporary urban informality/formality relations are being produced and are/might be understood, and puts forward an enlarged and comprehensive understanding of urban informality.

Bringing together an interdisciplinary and international group of researchers working on a wide variety of cities throughout Asia, Latin America and Europe, this book addresses, rethinks and, in some cases, abandons the notions of formal and informal urbanism. This collection critically interrogates both the ways in which 'informal' and 'formal' are put to work in the governing and politicisation of cities, and their conceptual strengths and weaknesses. It does so by focusing on a wide variety of topics, from specific forms of housing and labour often traditionally linked to the formal/informal divide, to urban political negotiations, cultural practices, and ways of being in the city. The book takes stock of and reflects on how contemporary urban informality/formality relations are being produced and are/might be understood, and puts forward an enlarged and comprehensive understanding of urban informality.

The ICSID Reports provide an authoritative collection of investor-State arbitral awards rendered under the auspices of the World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and other institutions. These decisions, which are fully indexed, make an important contribution to the growing body of jurisprudence on international investment law. The ICSID Reports are an invaluable tool for practitioners, scholars and government lawyers working in the field of public international law, investment treaty arbitration, and international commercial arbitration, whether advising foreign investors or States. Volume 20 of the ICSID Reports focuses on Attribution of Conduct, including an opening piece by ICSID Secretary-General Meg Kinnear regarding the investor-State application of the International Law Commission's Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts and an overview of the international law on attribution in investment disputes by Professor Jorge E Vinuales. Volume 20 of the ICSID Reports includes summaries, digests and excerpts of decisions rendered between 2009 and 2020 in 16 cases: Bayindir v. Pakistan, EDF v. Romania, Kardassopoulos v. Georgia, Hamester v. Ghana, Tulip Real Estate v. Turkey, Mesa Power v. Canada, Almas v. Poland, Flemingo DutyFree v. Poland, Saint-Gobain v. Venezuela, Ampal v. Egypt, Beijing Urban v. Yemen, Tethyan Copper v. Pakistan, Gavrilovic v. Croatia, Union Fenosa v. Egypt, Ortiz v. Algeria, and Strabag v. Libya.

As climate change and urban development are closely interlinked and often interact negatively, this edited volume takes Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), Vietnam's first mega-urban region as a case study to analyse its vulnerability to climate change and to suggest measures towards a more sustainable urban development. The book offers an overview on land use planning regarding the aspects of urban flooding, urban climate, urban energy and urban mobility as well as spatial views from the angle of urban planning such as the metropolitan level, the city, the neighbourhood and building level. It shows that to a significant degree, measures dealing with climate change can be taken from the toolbox of sustainable urban development and reflects how institutional structures need to change to enhance chances for implementation given socio-cultural and economic constraints. This is merged and integrated into a holistic perspective of planning recommendations, supporting the municipal government to increase its adaptive capacity. The authors are members of a German government funded research project on how to support HCMC's municipal government to adapt to risks related to climate change.

International law on sovereign defaults is underdeveloped because States have largely refrained from adjudicating disputes arising out of public debt. The looming new wave of sovereign defaults is likely to shift dispute resolution away from national courts to international tribunals and transform the current regime for restructuring sovereign debt. Michael Waibel assesses how international tribunals balance creditor claims and sovereign capacity to pay across time. The history of adjudicating sovereign defaults internationally over the last 150 years offers a rich repository of experience for future cases: US state defaults, quasi-receiverships in the Dominican Republic and Ottoman Empire, the Venezuela Preferential Case, the Soviet repudiation in 1917, the League of Nations, the World War Foreign Debt Commission, Germany's 30-year restructuring after 1918 and ICSID arbitration on Argentina's default in 2001. The remarkable continuity in international practice and jurisprudence suggests avenues for building durable institutions capable of resolving future sovereign defaults.

This tribute to Professor Detlev Vagts of the Harvard Law School brings together his colleagues at Harvard and the American Society of International Law, as well as academics, judges and practitioners, many of them his former students. Their essays span the entire spectrum of modern transnational law: international law in general; transnational economic law; and transnational lawyering and dispute resolution. The contributors evaluate established fields of transnational law, such as the protection of property and investment, and explore new areas of law which are in the process of detaching themselves from the nation-state such as global administrative law and the regulation of cross-border lawyering. The implications of decentralised norm-making, the proliferation of dispute settlement mechanisms and the rising backlash against global legal interdependence in the form of demands for preserving state legal autonomy are also examined.

Investment treaties are some of the most controversial but least understood instruments of global economic governance. Public interest in international investment arbitration is growing and some developed and developing countries are beginning to revisit their investment treaty policies. The Political Economy of the Investment Treaty Regime synthesises and advances the growing literature on this subject by integrating legal, economic, and political perspectives. Based on an analysis of the substantive and procedural rights conferred by investment treaties, it asks four basic questions. What are the costs and benefits of investment treaties for investors, states, and other stakeholders? Why did developed and developing countries sign the treaties? Why should private arbitrators be allowed to review public regulations passed by states? And what is the relationship between the investment treaty regime and the broader regime complex that governs international investment? Through a concise, but comprehensive, analysis, this book fills in some of the many "blind spots" of academics from different disciplines, and is the first port of call for lawyers, investors, policy-makers, and stakeholders trying to make sense of these critical instruments governing investor-state relations.

The ICSID Reports provide an authoritative published collection of investor-State arbitral awards and decisions rendered under the auspices of the World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), pursuant to other bilateral or multilateral investment treaties such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) or involving investment contracts entered by States. These decisions, which are fully indexed, make an important contribution to the growing body of jurisprudence on international investment law. The ICSID Reports are an invaluable tool for practitioners, scholars and government lawyers working in the field of public international law, investment treaty arbitration, international commercial arbitration, or advising foreign investors or States. Volume 18 of the ICSID Reports focuses on Defence Arguments in Investment Arbitration, including an opening piece from leading scholar and practitioner Professor Jan Paulsson, a founding partner of Three Crowns LLP, and a preliminary study by Professor Jorge E Vinuales, Harold Samuel Chair of Law and Environmental Policy at the University of Cambridge. Volume 18 of the ICSID Reports includes summaries, digests and excerpts of decisions rendered between 2007 and 2018 in 20 cases involving States from across Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas, reflecting the breadth of defence arguments in contemporary practice: Sempra v. Argentina, Continental Casualty v. Argentina, Cargill v. Mexico, Mobil v. Canada, Bankswitch v. Ghana, Yukos v. Russia, von Pezold v. Zimbabwe, Quiborax v. Bolivia, General Dynamics v. Libya, Philip Morris v. Uruguay, Devas v. India, Churchill v. Indonesia, Urbaser v. Argentina, Orascom v. Algeria, Karkey v. Pakistan, E energija v. Latvia, Mercer v. Canada, Antaris v. Czech Republic, ENKA v. Gabon, and Cortec v. Kenya.

The ICSID Reports provide an authoritative collection of investor-State arbitral awards rendered under the auspices of the World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and other institutions. These decisions, which are fully indexed, make an important contribution to the growing body of jurisprudence on international investment law. The ICSID Reports are an invaluable tool for practitioners, scholars and government lawyers working in the field of public international law, investment treaty arbitration, and international commercial arbitration, whether advising foreign investors or States. Volume 19 of the ICSID Reports focuses on The Meaning of Investment, including an opening piece on the unity of investment by leading scholar and arbitrator Professor Christoph Schreuer and an overview of subject-matter jurisdiction by Professor Michael Waibel. Volume 19 of the ICSID Reports includes summaries, digests and excerpts of decisions rendered between 2004 and 2016 in 21 cases: Mitchell v. DRC, Malaysian Historical Salvors v. Malaysia, Bayview v. Mexico, Biwater Gauff v. Tanzania, Quasar de Valors v. Russia, Phoenix Action v. Czech Republic, Romak v. Uzbekistan, Fakes v. Turkey, Global Trading Resource v. Ukraine, HICEE v. Slovakia, Abaclat v. Argentina, Caratube v. Kazakhstan, Deutsche Bank v. Sri Lanka, Standard Chartered Bank v. Tanzania, Ambiente Ufficio v. Argentina, AES v. Kazakhstan, Enkev Beheer v. Poland, Postova banka v. Greece, Gavazzi v. Romania, and MNSS v. Montenegro.

Investment treaties are some of the most controversial but least understood instruments of global economic governance. Public interest in international investment arbitration is growing and some developed and developing countries are beginning to revisit their investment treaty policies. The Political Economy of the Investment Treaty Regime synthesises and advances the growing literature on this subject by integrating legal, economic, and political perspectives. Based on an analysis of the substantive and procedural rights conferred by investment treaties, it asks four basic questions. What are the costs and benefits of investment treaties for investors, states, and other stakeholders? Why did developed and developing countries sign the treaties? Why should private arbitrators be allowed to review public regulations passed by states? And what is the relationship between the investment treaty regime and the broader regime complex that governs international investment? Through a concise, but comprehensive, analysis, this book fills in some of the many "blind spots" of academics from different disciplines, and is the first port of call for lawyers, investors, policy-makers, and stakeholders trying to make sense of these critical instruments governing investor-state relations.