THE CONUNDRUM OF RECOGNITION, ENFORCEMENT AND EXECUTION OF INTRA-EU INVESTMENT ARBITRATION AWARDS BEFORE NON-EU DOMESTIC COURTS

Over the past few years, the conflict between international investment law and European Union (EU) law has moved to a new battlefield: the recognition, enforcement and execution of intra-EU awards which, following the Achmea ruling, EU Member States have consistently refused to abide by when adverse. The present work aims to shed some light on the legal framework under which foreign investors have sought compliance by EU debtor States before non-EU domestic courts. To this purpose, it reviews the recent case law concerning recognition, enforcement and execution of both ICSID and non-ICSID awards, so as to understand whether, across different jurisdictions, a common trend has emerged in dealing with the ‘intra-EU objection’. In doing so, particular attention will be devoted to the issue of sovereign immunity, a defence increasingly relied upon, which seems to have the power to jeopardize the effectiveness of the main instruments governing the subject matter: the 1961 ICSID Convention and the 1958 New York Convention.