I. INTRODUCTION

Investment arbitration has become one of the central features of contemporary legal practice for counsel, government officials and arbitrators. It has also meant the development of specialized institutions, such as ICSID, or the growing utilization for the settlement of investment disputes of other arbitration institutions, such as the LCIA, the ICC and the Stockholm Centre, just as it has meant an increasing utilization of UNCITRAL rules in this context. This contribution has been organized not so much on the procedural aspects of such arbitration, which are in many respects similar to those of any other arbitration and are very competently explained in other sections of this book. It will rather look at a number of issues concerning jurisdiction which need to be considered by counsel in respect of many disputes that are likely to end in some form of international arbitration or indeed at the time they are brought to arbitration. II. A SHARED PRIVILEGE