France ranks as the fourth most active country in Europe in supporting the international investment arbitration regime, according to a new study (1) published by a coalition of eight European organisations, including the Veblen Institute, Powershift and CAN Europe (2). These findings are released on the eve of the first [International Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels>https://transitionawayconference.com/], to be held from 24 to 29 April in Colombia, during which the investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS) system will be examined as a major obstacle to the defossilisation of our economies.

Arbitration tribunals, known as investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanisms, are provisions embedded in many trade and investment agreements. They allow investors (multinational corporations or individuals) to sue governments before private tribunals outside domestic legal systems over public interest policies — such as environmental protection or public health regulation — that they claim harm their profits, with compensation awards often reaching millions or even billions of euros.

The report entitled “Investment Arbitration Index: A Comparative Analysis of the Harmful Effects of Treaties Across 30 European Countries”, published today alongside an interactive “scoreboard”, ranks 30 European countries (3) to measure the scale of their investment treaty networks, their actual use by investors, and their concrete impacts. The index is based on ten indicators, including the number of agreements signed with ISDS provisions, their use in sensitive sectors such as fossil fuels, and the amounts of compensation claimed and awarded.

The report highlights Europe’s pivotal role in the global ISDS architecture and underscores the responsibility of a small group of countries — the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, France and Switzerland — which account for a significant share of the treaties, disputes and climate risks generated by this opaque system.

The ranking reveals that:

• The United Kingdom ranks first among countries responsible for the development and maintenance of ISDS; British investors are particularly active in ISDS proceedings in the mining and fossil fuel sectors.
• The Netherlands follows closely behind; Dutch investors (often using shell companies with no substantial economic activity) have initiated more ISDS proceedings than those from any other European country.
• France is characterised by treaties covering a large volume of investments linked to future greenhouse gas emissions and containing very long survival clauses. This configuration may constitute a structural obstacle to the adoption of ambitious energy transition policies.
• Ireland is the only country with no bilateral investment treaties with other states (although this may soon change if EU trade agreements containing ISDS provisions enter into force) (4), and Norway has already terminated half of its relatively small number of treaties, demonstrating that European countries can choose alternative paths.

The report makes several recommendations:

• That European governments stop signing new agreements containing investment protection chapters with ISDS or an Investment Court System mechanism. (4)
• That they begin systematically terminating existing treaties. For treaties containing “sunset clauses” — which allow provisions to remain in force for a period often ranging from 10 to 20 years after termination — countries should pursue “coordinated withdrawals” to neutralise them.
• That they cooperate with other countries, including outside Europe, to promote a broader exit from the ISDS system.

Examples of cases

The consequences of treaty networks, rooted in post-colonial economic relationships, are felt particularly strongly in countries of the Global South, which are the target of the majority of ISDS claims. France has been the home state of investors in 69 cases; for example, the disputes initiated in 2021 by Vinci against Peru and Chile over the economic effects of public health measures adopted during the pandemic (5).

However, European countries themselves are increasingly targeted by claims, notably in connection with environmental policies. Severgroup and KN Holdings, two investment companies controlled by sanctioned Russian oligarch A. Mordashov, initiated a proceeding against France in 2021 under the France–Russia BIT, seeking €4.5 billion in compensation following the French government’s withdrawal of support for the Montagne d’Or open-pit gold mining megaproject in French Guiana. France is also being sued by Russo-Armenian businessman S. Karapetyan, whose villa on the French Riviera was seized amid allegations of money laundering and acting as a nominee for the sanctioned oil and gas giant Gazprom. This case forms part of a recent wave of claims in Europe directly challenging sanctions imposed following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (6).

Santa Marta Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels

This publication also comes ahead of the first Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, to be held from 24 to 29 April in Santa Marta, Colombia — a country that has just announced its intention to withdraw from the ISDS system. ISDS is among the central items on the conference agenda, and organisations across Europe are calling on their governments to “seize this opportunity” to plan a coordinated withdrawal from the ISDS regime together with other participating countries (7).

According to Mathilde Dupré, Co-Director of the Veblen Institute:
“This report reveals the responsibility of European countries in establishing and maintaining an investment protection regime that is incompatible with states’ current commitments to environmental protection and national security. The termination of intra-EU treaties and withdrawal from the Energy Charter Treaty have only partially reduced the risks that this system poses to our democracies. It is time to address the stock of older treaties held by EU Member States in order to reduce, in parallel, the risks faced by countries in the Global South.”

For Stéphanie Kpenou, Programme Officer for Trade Policy Reform at the Veblen Institute:
“France must seize the major opportunity offered by the upcoming conference in Colombia on transitioning away from fossil fuels to unlock investment protection constraints, starting with this sector.”

Notes

(1) The full report is available in English and French, and the results can be accessed online on this website.
(2) The report is jointly published by the Veblen Institute, Powershift (Germany), Global Justice Now and Trade Justice Movement (UK), TROCA (Portugal), Alliance Sud (Switzerland), CAN Europe and the European Coalition for Just Trade.
(3) The index ranks 30 European countries — the 27 EU Member States plus Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom — according to their structural involvement in the ISDS system. It adopts a home-state perspective, examining which treaty networks and economic actors feed the system as sources of ISDS claims. Ten indicators measure different dimensions of this involvement, ranging from the size of a country’s treaty network to the number and financial scale of disputes initiated by its investors, as well as the fossil fuel assets covered by those treaties. Raw values were normalised, weighted to produce a composite score, and transformed onto a 0–10 scale, where a higher score indicates greater involvement in the ISDS system. The full methodology is available in the annex to the report.
(4) The EU has recently concluded several agreements containing investment protection chapters, including treaties with Canada, Singapore, Vietnam and Chile, pending ratification by Member States, as well as the EU–Mexico agreement pending ratification at EU level.
(5) See the UNCTAD online France page.
(6) See the report “Frozen Assets, Hot Claims: How Russian Oligarchs and Other Investors Use Investment Arbitration to Challenge Sanctions”, December 2025.
(7) See the Veblen Institute brief on the obstacles posed by investment arbitration to phasing out fossil fuels, published on the occasion of the Santa Marta Conference.