ICSID Jurisprudence: Between Homogeneity and Heterogeneity A Call for Appeal?

The settlement of investment disputes within the ICSID system is carried out by the ICSID arbitral tribunals which are non-permanent judicial bodies. Every separate case is adjudicated by a different ICSID panel. The only remedy available to set aside an ICSID award is the annulment procedure pursuant to Article 52 which concerns only the legitimacy of the process of decision. Moreover, the possibility of appeal of an arbitral award is explicitly excluded within the ICSID system. The limited scope of review pursuant to article 52 as well as the explicit exclusion of appeal intend to preserve the finality of ICSID awards. But at what cost? Using as example the ICSID jurisprudence regarding the state of necessity and the most-favoured nation clause, the present paper examines the homogeneity of the ICSID jurisprudence in order to ascertain whether the case-law of the separate and not standing ICSID panels proves to be so inconsistent that the ICSID system suffers from a serious institutional deficit.