CL-2021-000481 - [2025] EWHC 2874 (Comm)

It is common ground that the ICSID Convention contains no express provision either permitting an investor to assign an award or precluding the assignment of an award. Whether an assignment of an award is permitted depends therefore the true meaning and effect of the ICSID Convention and the ECT and on any applicable principles of customary international law.

The claimants and Blasket submit that since neither the ICSID Convention or the ECT contains an express prohibition on assignment, and there is no other applicable principle of international law that prohibits assignment, it follows that non-parties may seek recognition or enforcement of such awards, at any rate in relation to ECT disputes.

Spain disputes each of these propositions, maintaining that conventions are to be construed strictly and so construed the ICSID Convention precludes ICSID Convention awards being assignable (at any rate in relation to ECT disputes) save to the extent there is express permission to that effect is given after the event by the state concerned. Spain submits that the principles of construction that should be adopted are those to be found in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties 1969 (“Vienna Convention”). For the reasons that I explain in detail below, I consider the issue is one that is to be resolved as a matter of construction primarily of the ICSID Convention and to a lesser extent the ECT and that no useful assistance can be obtained from customary public international law because there is no or no sufficiently widespread, representative or consistent practice that establishes a rule of customary international law that rights under treaties or conventions such as the ICSID Convention either are or are not assignable.