Testing the Limits of Jurisdiction in Investor-State Arbitration in Svalbard’s Waters: Peteris Pildegovics and SIA North Star v. Kingdom of Norway

• Published in: Arctic Review on Law and Politics
• Main Author: Schatz, Valentin
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: University of Tromsø - The Arctic University of Norway, Faculty of Law 2021
• Subjects: North Star; Norway; Arctic
• Online Access: https://arcticreview.no/index.php/arctic/article/view/3372; https://doi.org/10.23865/arctic.v12.3372

On 1 April 2020, the Latvian fishing company SIA North Star and its owner Peteris Pildegovics initiated an investor-State arbitration against Norway (Peteris Pildegovics and SIA North Star v. Kingdom of Norway) at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). This case is not only Norway’s first ever ICSID case, but also the first publicly known investor-State arbitration in which an operator of a fishing vessel has brought a claim against a coastal State for allegedly unlawful exercise of prescriptive and enforcement jurisdiction in relation to fisheries. The case raises intricate questions concerning the limits of jurisdictionratione materiaeand jurisdictionratione personaeof investment tribunals.