The Hill News

In declaring last month that he won’t abide by rulings of the main international forum for settling investment disputes, Venezuela President Hugo Chavez is following in the footsteps of Argentina’s leaders, whose brazen behavior is encouraging other nations to ignore the legal framework that gives investors confidence to invest trillions of dollars in faraway projects essential to global economic growth.
 
Chavez told a television audience on Jan. 8: “We have to get out of that ICSID, and I tell you, We will not recognize any ICSD decisions.” Venezuela has 21 cases pending before the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, totaling $40 billion, or one-tenth of the country’s gross domestic product. The claims stem from expropriations of the assets of such U.S. energy companies Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, and Chevron as well as Europe’s Repsol, ENI, and Staoil.

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