Bridging the Private-Public Divide in Investor-State Arbitration: Can Retrofitting Amicus Curiae Improve How Tribunals Consider Human Rights Issues?

Rightsholders who are consistently excluded from ISDS have increasingly filed third-party submissions to ISDS tribunals in the hopes that these submissions will force tribunals to consider their perspectives. This article seeks to address whether such third-party submissions, often called ‘amici curiae’, can provide an effective remedy for rightsholders through comparing how amici curiae could fulfil the criteria outlined in the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (‘UNGPs’).