The Investment Disputes Convention and Latin America
![handle is hein.journals/vajint11 and id is 266 raw text is: The Ilnvestment Disputes Convention
and Latin America:
PAUL C. SZASZ**
Perhaps the question most frequently put to those of us in the
World Bank who administer the International Centre for Settlement
of Investment Disputes is: Is such-or-such Latin American country
party to the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes
between States and Nationals of Other States? I And, on hearing our
regretful negative reply, the next queries by the disappointed po-
tential investor or his legal counsel almost invariably are: Why hasn't
it joined the Centre, and when is it likely to do so? What can be done
to speed this process? When it is necessary and possible to answer
these queries fully (and more often than not they are posed over
the long-distance phone) we find we must first backtrack somewhat
into the pre-history of the Convention.
I. HISTORICAL NOTES
Latin American opposition to the entire idea of establishing special
fora in which governments and foreign investors could litigate was
already evident during the earliest stages of the formulation of the
Convention, and became more and more pronounced as these efforts
came closer to fruition. The first indications came during the Con-
sultative Meeting the World Bank convened in Santiago de Chile in
February 1964 for lawyers from the Western Hemisphere-the second
of four such regional meetings at which the idea of the Convention
was first examined outside of the confines of the Bank.2 While the
general reaction at the other three meetings (at two of which almost
exclusively developing States were represented, and the third com-
prising mostly capital-exporters) was all but uniformly positive, the
detailed discussions in Santiago were prefaced by several statements
of fundamental doubt. These did not, however, prevent an objective
* This article is a revised version of a paper presented at the Regional Meeting
of the American Society of International Law on Foreign Investment in Latin
America: Past Policies and Future Trends at the University of Virginia School
of Law, March 13-14, 1970.
** Member of the staff of the International Bank for Reconstruction and De-
velopment, seconded to the International Centre for Settlement of Investment
Disputes. B.S., Cornell, 1951; LL.B., Cornell, 1956. The views expressed herein
do not, however, necessarily reflect those of either of the organizations.
1. The SID Convention was submitted to members of the World Bank on
March 18, 1965 and entered into force on October 14, 1966. 17 U.S.T. 1270,
T.I.A.S. No. 6090, 575 U.N.T.S. 159 [hereinafter cited as Convention].
2. The formulation of the Convention is briefly summarized in Part A of I
HISTORY OF THE CONVENTION ON THE SETTLEMENT OF INVESTMENT DISPUTES
BETWEEN STATES AND NATIONALS OF OTHER STATES (published by the Inter-
national Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, 1970) (hereinafter
cited as THE HISTORY].](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/vajint11&div=26&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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The Investment Disputes Convention and Latin America
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