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Reconfiguring Sovereignty: NAFTA Chapter 11 Dispute Settlement Procedures and the Issue of Public-Private Authority

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 November 2006

Stephen McBride
Stephen McBride
Affiliation:
Simon Fraser University
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Abstract

Abstract. This article focuses on the claim that authority is shifting from public into private hands. To partially test that thesis it examines the procedures for settling disputes under NAFTA Chapter 11 (itself an example of the broader category of investor-state provisions found in bilateral investment agreements and some international conventions). The article detects evidence of a delegation or transfer of public authority to private processes. It deals only incidentally with NAFTA Chapter 11's grant to investors of the right to make direct claims against signatory governments; rather, it concentrates on the procedures for resolving such claims, and the means available to states to assert the public interest. Specifically, this article examines the way that the NAFTA Chapter 11 dispute resolution mechanism is rooted in private arbitration processes and seeks to determine the effectiveness of the means available to public authorities to alter decisions emanating from them, if they are deemed to be contrary to the public interest.

Résumé. Cet article considère l'argument selon lequel l'exercice de l'autorité publique est en train de passer du domaine public au domaine privé. Afin de vérifier, au moins partiellement, cette thèse l'article passe en revue les procédures d'adjudication des différends aux termes du chapitre 11 de l'ALENA - qui est lui-même un exemple de la catégorie plus vaste des dispositions concernant le traitement des investisseurs, et leur droit d'apparaître devant les tribunaux d'arbitrage au même titre que les États, que l'on trouve dans certains traités bilatéraux et internationaux. L'article décèle les indices d'une délégation ou d'un transfert de l'autorité publique vers le secteur privé. Il ne porte que tangentiellement sur le chapitre 11 de l'ALENA et les droits des investisseurs de porter plainte contre les gouvernements signataires; il analyse, par contre,de manière plus approfondie les procédures utilisées pour résoudre de telles plaintes et les moyens dont disposent les États pour défendre l'intérêt général. L'auteur examine plus particulièrement l'enracinement de la procédure de résolution des différends du chapitre 11 de l'ALENA dans les processus d'arbitrage privé et cherche à déterminer l'efficacité des moyens dont disposent les autorités publiques pour modifier les décisions qui en résultent si elles s'avèrent être contraires à l'intérêt général.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 39 , Issue 4 , December 2006 , pp. 755 - 775
Copyright
© 2006 Cambridge University Press

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