Gambia ratifies the United Nations Convention on Transparency in Treaty-based Investor-State Arbitration

The Convention is open for signature, ratification, and accession by States and regional economic integration organizations

VIENNA, Austria, October 2, 2018,-/African Media Agency (AMA)/- On 28 September 2018, Gambia ratified the United Nations Convention on Transparency in Treaty-based Investor-State Arbitration (the “Mauritius Convention on Transparency”). Gambia is the fifth State after Canada, Cameroon, Mauritius and Switzerland to ratify the Convention. The Convention entered into force on 18 October 2017. In Gambia, the Convention will enter into force on 28 March 2019.

Since the signing ceremony at Port Louis, Mauritius on 17 March 2015, the following States also signed the Convention: Australia, Belgium, Benin, Bolivia, Congo, Finland, France, Gabon, Germany, Iraq, Italy, Luxembourg, Madagascar, the Netherlands, Sweden, Syria, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The Convention is open for signature, ratification, and accession by States and regional economic integration organizations. Up-to-date information about the parties to the Convention as well as its signatories, is available on the UNCITRAL website.

The Mauritius Convention on Transparency aims to provide States and regional economic integration organizations with an efficient mechanism that extends the scope of the UNCITRAL Rules on Transparency in Treaty-based Investor-State Arbitration (“Rules on Transparency”). The Rules on Transparency provide procedural rules that ensure transparency and public accessibility to treaty-based investor-State arbitration, the proceedings of which have traditionally been conducted behind closed doors. By ratifying the Convention, a State or regional economic integration organization expresses its consent to apply the Rules on Transparency to investor-State arbitrations initiated under investment treaties concluded before 1 April 2014.

Together with the Rules on Transparency, the Mauritius Convention on Transparency effectively balances the public interest in being informed of investor-State disputes with the parties’ interests in resolving these disputes in a fair and efficient manner. It is expected that the Convention will significantly contribute to enhancing transparency in investor-State arbitrations.

Distributed by African Media Agency (AMA) on behalf of United Nations Information Service Vienna (UNIS).