Ildikó Szalai: Practical Challenges Arising from EU Investment Protection Policy. Nr. 2026/12.

In the field of investment protection, the judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union started to eliminate all possibilities of providing protection through arbitration clauses of investor-state dispute settlement between Member States of the European Union derived from international investment protection agreements. At the final stage of the EU, two international agreements were concluded, both of which were applied retroactively. However, ongoing international arbitral proceedings still give rise to further issues. Moreover, this may also have an impact on the provisions of investment protection agreements concluded between an EU Member State and a third country, which highlights the need for focused attention in this area going forward, too. This study focuses on this topic, while also examining the content of an international agreement concluded by Hungary, with the aim to illustrate the practical challenges arising from the policy of the European Union.

Keywords: international investment law, EU investment protection, autonomy of law, Achmea judgment, Komstroy judgment, bilateral investment treaties.

The working paper can be downloaded here.