ENERGIZE: Re-Shaping International Investment Law for the Green Transition

The project combines research perspectives of investment law, EU law and institutional economics to examine international treaties and propose substantive, procedural, and institutional solutions to enhance environmental protection and support the green transition in the energy sector.

ENERGIZE examines how the EU's goal of carbon neutrality set for 2050, and the resulting transformation of the energy sector, can be supported by international investment law. The EU and its member states are bound by multiple investment agreements, including the Energy Charter Treaty. These agreements protect traditional energy industries and an abrupt change to renewables would open the door to investor claims against the host states.

ENERGIZE combines perspectives of international investment law, EU law and institutional economics for reinterpretation of existing investment treaties to safeguard protection of environmental common goods. This legal and economic study will incorporate results of empirical research of key stakeholders and offer recommendations for further regulatory action.

 

  • Morten Dyrholm (Group Senior Global VicePresident for Vestas Wind Systems; Vice-Chairman of the Danish Wind Association),
  • Prof. Bent Ole Gram Mortensen (energy law, University of Southern Denmark),
  • Maria Kleis-Walravens (environmental advocacy and energy law, Head of Energy Systems and State Aid, ClientEarth Brussels);
  • Prof. Krista N. Schefer (investment law, World Trade Institute Bern; Vice-Director of the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law).

 

 

1steENERGIZE Workshop – DFF Project "ENERGIZE: Re-Shaping International Investment Law for the Green Transition" (August 2022)

2ndENERGIZE Workshop – DFF Project "ENERGIZE: Re-Shaping International Investment Law for the Green Transition" (September 2023)

Forthcoming ENERGIZE International Conference – DFF Project "ENERGIZE: Re-Shaping International Investment Law for the Green Transition" (2024)

 

 

 

Team

 

Research profile

joanna.lam@jur.ku.dk

Joanna Lam is Professor mso and Director of Study Hub for International Economic Law and Development (SHIELD) at the Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen. She is the Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of World Investment & Trade (together with Julien Chaisse). Joanna Lam graduated from Harvard Law School and from University of Warsaw (summa cum laude). She holds doctoral and habilitation degrees in juridical sciences and is also a licensed attorney-at-law. Her current research interests include ISDS reform; investor obligations; and environmental considerations in international investment law.

Lam held visiting appointments at Harvard Law School (as Fulbright Fellow), UNIDROIT and University of California, Berkeley School of Law. She is an author and editor of a number of books, including the monograph “Legal Interpretation in International Commercial Arbitration” (as Joanna Jemielniak, Routledge 2014), as well as the volumes "Establishing Judicial Authority in International Economic Law" (Cambridge University Press 2016; Joanna Jemielniak, Laura Nielsen and Henrik Palmer Olsen eds.) and “Language and Legal Interpretation in International Law” (Oxford University Press 2022, Anne Lise Kjær and Joanna Lam eds.). She also published in, inter alia, Journal of International Arbitration, European Business Law Review, Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law, Leiden Journal of International Law and Journal of International Economic Law.

 

stefan.voigt@uni-hamburg.de

Stefan Voigt is professor at the University of Hamburg and the director of its Institute of Law & Economics. He is a fellow with CESifo (Munich). Previous positions include chairs at the Universities of Marburg, Kassel and Ruhr-University Bochum. Voigt has been a fellow at the Institutes for Advanced Study in Berlin, in Greifswald, and at the University of Notre Dame. His research focuses on the economic effects of institutions. Stefan has numerous publications on the economic effects of constitutions. More recently, he has become interested in both the determinants and the effects of informal institutions. Voigt is one of the editors of Constitutional Political Economy and a member of various boards including those of Public Choice and the International Review of Law & Economics. Voigt has consulting experience with both the public and the private sector. He has worked with the World Bank, the European Commission and the OECD but also with the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT).

 

eawhitsi@ucalgary.ca

Elizabeth Whitsitt is an associate professor at the University of Calgary, Faculty of Law. She is co-recipient and collaborator on a number of research projects on various aspects of international trade and international investment law. Elizabeth is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArb) and has been appointed to Canada’s USMCA (United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement) Chapter 10 Roster. Professor Whitsitt is also a Canadian Member of the USMCA’s Joint Public Advisory Committee to the Commission for Environmental Cooperation.

 

 

 

pawel.marcisz@gmail.com

Paweł Marcisz is an assistant professor in the European Law Department at the University of Warsaw, Faculty of Law and Administration. He is also affiliated with the Study Hub for International Economic Law and Development (SHIELD) at the Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen. He holds Master degrees in law and in philosophy. Marcisz’s research interests focus on the theory of EU’s institutional law. His work on the EU judicial system and its autonomy encompasses problems with investment dispute settlements systems, entered into by the EU or its member states. Marcisz is an author of a monograph on law-making by the European Court of Justice. His recent research concerns the limitations and possibilities of the EU’s engagement in international investment law in the view of case law of the European Court of Justice.

He is a founding member of the Working Group for Environmental and Biodiversity Law at the Faculty of Law and Administration, University of Warsaw. As a member of the Group, he has engaged in a range of activities supporting environmental protection, including submitting amici curiae briefs in administrative proceedings. He teaches courses on EU law and competition law at the university, as well as for advocate trainees. Paweł Marcisz is also an attorney, practicing civil and administrative litigation, EU law, and competition law. He also serves as an arbitrator in commercial disputes. His pro bono service has included representation of the LGBT+ community before Polish courts and the European Court of Human Rights in some landmark cases concerning gay rights.

 

Research profile

siri.silvereke@jur.ku.dk

Siri Silvereke is post-doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen, affiliated with the Study Hub for International Economic Law and Development (SHIELD) and iCourts. She is a member of the research team in the DFF project ENERGIZE, which examines transformations of international investment law for the green transition (led by Prof. mso Joanna Lam). Her current research is focused on protection of environmental common goods in the energy sector in the context of international investment law and EU law.

Siri Silvereke graduated from Lund University (Sweden) with a Master in Laws in European Business Law. She also studied at Université Panthéon Assas, Paris II, Paris (France) and at the Örebro University (Sweden). Siri Silvereke holds a doctoral degree from University of Luxembourg, where she researched the recent deep comprehensive free trade and investment agreements, their compatibility with EU law and the effect that the new investment dispute resolution systems may have on the EU autonomy (doctoral thesis: “The New Generation of Bilateral Free Trade Agreement – a new legal instrument for external action and trade of the European Union”). She assisted Prof. Eleftheria Neframi on the project “EU as a Global Actor”, where she participated in organizing a series of conferences and seminars on a quarterly basis between 2015-2017 at University of Luxembourg. She also published on, inter alia, the effect of the UK withdrawal from the EU on bilateral free trade agreements (International Organizations Law Review). 

As Senior Lecturer at Lund University, Siri Silvereke has taught master- and bachelor-level courses in the areas of EU law (incl. EU competition law and EU external policy and regional cooperations), as well as international investment and trade law.

 

alek.szostak@gmail.com

Aleksander Szostak is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Law, Kozminski University. He is also affiliated with the Study Hub for International Economic Law and Development (SHIELD) at the Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen. In addition to his work in the academia, he is also a corporate and capital markets lawyer. Aleksander holds an LL.M. degree from University of Amsterdam and an LL.B. degree from Maastricht University. He also studied at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Aleksander specializes in international economic law, investment treaty arbitration and corporate law. His current research focuses on the interaction between investment protection treaties and non-economic policy interests of capital importing states. In particular, Aleksander investigates treatment of non-economic policy interests in investment protection treaties and investment treaty arbitration and aims to develop relevant de lege ferenda proposals. His research examines the issues of policy space of capital importing states under investment protection treaties; and the relation of international economic law to green energy transition and decarbonization. 

 

 

 

 

Funding

Independent Research Fund Denmark logo
ENERGIZE: Re-Shaping International Investment Law for the Green Transition has received a three year funding from Independent Research Fund Denmark


Project: ENERGIZE: Re-Shaping International Investment Law for the Green Transition
(Grant number: 1127-00433A)

Period: 01-01-2022 – 31-12-2024

Contact

Joanna LamPI Professor with special responsibilities, Director of SHIELD
Joanna Lam

E-mail: joanna.lam@jur.ku.dk
Phone: +45 35 33 08 95