Cultural Heritage Considerations Home in International Editorial Insight Investment When arbitration is not voluntary: the case of Mutu and Pechstein v. Switzerland Arbitration Sebastián Green MartínezInternational Arbitration Global BriefingThe impact of The Belt andRoad Initiative on investment arbitration “What’s in a name?”: NAFTA nternational Investment Arbitration is an international law dispute to USMCA and what this change means for investment I settlement mechanism. It is established by international legal instruments, protection such as treaties, and involves international legal rights and obligations and, unlike international commercial arbitration, it requires the In Focus interpretation and application of public international law principles. Even Cultural Heritage though the law to be applied to specific Investor-State Dispute Settlement ("ISDS") Considerations in proceedings is commonly determined by Bilateral Investment Treaties ("BITs"), it is not International Investment Arbitration rare to find that such clauses refer to the domestic law of the state that is party to the dispute, the BIT itself, and international law in general. In the latter category, we may Smart Contracts and findinternational agreements that regulate theadministration and protection of tangible International Arbitration: Friends or Foes? andintangible cultural heritage which, in turn, can play a vital role in ISDS. The Achmea decision: Various ISDS proceedings have involved cultural heritage. Even though cultural significant uncertainties linger heritage law can be considered as foreign to most arbitrators, in the seminal award rendered in the “Pyramids Case”, a tribunal -presided by the former President of Investment Arbitration: the International Court of Justice, Eduardo Jiménez de Aréchaga- observed that Contact Lawyers the UNESCO Convention Concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage (the "World Heritage Convention") was relevant in deciding that dispute,1 which involved a tourism project in the vicinity of the Great Pyramids, a site included on the World Heritage List. Since then, several investment cases involving cultural heritage law considerations have followed. This article briefly analyses the decisions 1Southern Pacific Properties (Middle East) Limited v. Arab Republic of Egypt, ICSID Case No. ARB/84/3, Award, ¶ 78 www.uria.com (20 May 1992). 13