La nozione di ‘contratto internazionale di investimento’ alla luce dei lavori del working group UNIDROIT-ICC: un’estensione applicativa del test Salini?

The establishment of the UNIDROIT-ICC Working Group on interna-tional investment contracts has reignited the debate on these contracts, which form part of the broader concept of international investments. In the absence of a widely accepted definition of them, this article seeks to develop one, adopting both a normative and an illustrative approach. Such a definition would serve two key purposes: delineating the scope of the working group’s outcome document and enhancing predictability and legal certainty in international arbitration, particularly contract-bases claims. First, it is argued that the Salini criteria should be applied to determine the existence of an international investment contract. This would be in line with the growing trend of ICSID and non-ICSID tribunals, as well as international investment agreements, to rely on an autonomous definition of “investment”. Second, drawing from the discourse on long-term contracts – of which investment contract may be considered a subset – the article identifies specific contract types for which the fulfilment of the Salini criteria can be presumed.