Resumen de Spain, and the Crisis of Investment Arbitration: Extra-EU Jurisdictions as Alternative enforcement Forums

Jesús Alfonso Soto Pineda, Evelyn Gacitúa, Fernando González, Elena Lucas

• The purpose of this paper is to examine the structural crisis that currently faces the international investment arbitration regime within the European Union, with particular attention to the growing incompatibility between the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) and the principles of EU law. Building on the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in Achmea and Komstroy, Member States have relied on EU law to resist compliance with arbitral awards, thereby undermining investor confidence and generating unprecedented legal uncertainty. Against this backdrop, this document analyses the case of investment awards in which Spain was condemned under the ECT and its investors recourse to external jurisdictions, notably the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia, as alternative forums to seek enforceability against this nation. Through a comparative examination oflandmark cases, the study identifies the legal arguments that have enabled enforcement abroad, the limits investors encounter in practice, and the broader consequences for the coherence of EU public order and the legitimacy of the international investment law system.