The Applicability of the Most-Favoured-Nation Standard to the Dispute Settlement Clauses in Investment Treaties

Most-Favoured-Nation –MFN– Clause has been always regarded as one of the cornerstones of international investment treaties safeguarding foreign investors from being discriminated in comparison to their other nationals rivals. Traditionally, MFN Clause has been used to avoid discrimination in substantive rights. After Maffezini Case Award, enforcing MFN clause to procedural rights specially to dispute settlement clauses has moved this standard to an advance level of practice in international investment law. In many cases, investors succeeded to prove jurisdiction in arbitrations in which defendant state has never consented, also to leap-frog prerequisites needed to be fulfilled before referring the case to an international arbitration. Regarding the fact that MFN Clause, without any exemption, is enshrined through all Iranian bilateral investment treaties without any explicit limitation about application of the mentioned clause to dispute settlement provisions, the subject is critically of highest importance from the perspective of national interests and also the State policy about foreign investments. Present article, after giving a summary of the latest updates about the issue and also reviewing relevant jurisprudence, intends to scrutinize possibility of Iranian BITs MFN Clauses being cited about dispute settlement provisions, and to provide solutions for covering relevant risks.