Renewable Energy and Regulatory (In)stability

Co-hosted with Global Economic Law Network 

Wednesday, 18 December
1pm - 2pm
Room 920
Melbourne Law School, 185 Pelham Street, Carlton

Over the last years, several foreign investors have challenged governmental measures modifying economic incentives in the renewable energy market. Regulatory stability is of paramount importance in the energy sector. International investment law has long attempted to strike a delicate balance between foreign investors’ confidence in the regulations that underpin their long‐term investments and the host State’s right to adapt regulations to new circumstances. The gist of the question is whether investors can seek compensation under international investment treaties when governments encourage investments via economic support schemes but decide to reduce or eliminate them after the investment has been made. In other words, what kind of legal stability should exist in the renewable energy market?

This seminar was a collaboration between the Global Economic Law Network and the Centre for Resources, Energy and Environmental Law at Melbourne Law School

Presenter

Professor Dias Simões is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law of the Chinese University of Hong Kong since January 2019. He currently serves as Deputy Programme Director of the Master of Laws (LLM) in International Economic Law. Before joining CUHK, Professor Dias Simões taught for 14 years in universities in Macau and Portugal; in addition, he practiced in a major law firm and served as in-house counsel to a water concessionaire company in his native Portugal. His research interests include international adjudication (in particular, commercial and investment arbitration), investment law, and comparative contract law. He is fascinated by the idea of international arbitration as more than a simple dispute settlement mechanism: arbitrators are private service providers, and arbitration a market. However, this ‘market’ is undergoing profound changes, particularly in the field of investment arbitration. In his ongoing research projects Professor Dias Simões questions whether this phenomenon is evidence of simple growing pains or, more than that, of a true identity crisis.