Energy & environment

Most investor-state disputes (ISDS) have concerned environmental matters. Corporations are using the ISDS system found in trade and investment agreements to challenge environmental policies. As of end of 2019, 41% of all ICSID cases were energy and natural resources-related.

Most well-known cases include:

• Lone Pine Resources (US) vs. Canada: the investor challenged Quebec’s moratorium on the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for natural gas. The provincial government declared the moratorium in 2011 so as to conduct an environmental impact assessment of the extraction method widely accused of leaching chemicals and gases into groundwater and the air. Case pending (NAFTA invoked).

• Bilcon (US) vs. Canada: the US industry challenged Canadian environmental requirements affecting their plans to open a basalt quarry and a marine terminal in Nova Scotia. In 2015 the ISDS tribunal decided that the government’s decision hindered the investors’ expectations. Bilcon won and received US$7 million in damages, plus interest (NAFTA invoked).

• Vattenfall (Sweden) vs. Germany: in 2007 the Swedish energy corporation was granted a provisional permit to build a coal-fired power plant near the city of Hamburg. In an effort to protect the Elbe river from the waste waters dumped from the plant, environmental restrictions were added before the final approval of its construction. The investor initiated a dispute, arguing it would make the project unviable. The case was ultimately settled in 2011, with the city of Hamburg agreeing to the lowering of environmental standards (ECT invoked).

Photo: Kris Krug / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

(March 2020)

Romania Journal | 20-Mar-2025
The Romanian state has lost a lawsuit pending before the International Court of Arbitration in Washington, initiated in 2020 by an investor in the renewable energy sector.
Mining Weekly | 19-Mar-2025
Morocco-focused potash development company Emmerson has drawn down the first tranche of funding under the Capital Provision Agreement, which will provide the company with up to $11-million in both litigation finance capital and working capital.
Médias24 | 18-Mar-2025
La compagnie minière Emmerson a procédé à l’activation de la première tranche de son financement dédié à son recours suite à son différend avec le Maroc concernant l’autorisation environnementale d’une mine de potasse dans la province de Khémisset.
Le360 | 17-Mar-2025
Plus de trois mois après le dépôt, à l’initiative du Maroc, d’une demande d’annulation de la sentence prononcée en juillet 2024 en faveur du groupe suédois Corral, le comité ad hoc chargé d’étudier ce recours a tenu sa première session.
The Guardian | 10-Mar-2025
Investor–state dispute settlements don’t just mean growing debt burdens for countries: they are also a barrier to action on the climate crisis.
Land and Climate Review | 10-Mar-2025
Exxon owes the people of Groningen millions in compensation for damage caused by gas extraction. Thanks to an obscure legal instrument, it could be the residents of the province that end up compensating the fossil fuel giant.
The Guardian | 7-Mar-2025
Companies can sue governments for closing oilfields and mines – and the risk of huge damages is already stopping countries from passing green laws, ministers say.
Inside Climate News | 7-Mar-2025
Communities and ecosystems across the globe face heavy environmental damage from intensifying mining operations. A people’s tribunal probed the Canadian mining industry’s impact on the natural world and the people defending it.
The Guardian | 6-Mar-2025
Fossil-fuel and mining firms have won $92bn of public money from states, with a growing number of cases backed by financial speculators
PR Newswire | 6-Mar-2025
The arbitration arises from Venezuela’s measures that deprived GR Mining of its rights to, and materially damaged its investment in, the multi-billion-dollar Siembra Minera mining project located in Venezuela.