The accelerating climate crisis calls for a profound recalibration of regulatory priorities of host states, particularly in the realms of energy, finance, and environmental governance. As governments implement sweeping measures to decarbonise their economies – phasing out fossil fuels, imposing carbon pricing regimes, and incentivising green technologies – these policies increasingly intersect and, in some instances, collide with the legacy architecture of international investment law. Anchored in treaties designed to protect investor expectations and capital flows, the international investment regime now stands at a critical juncture: whether to evolve in response to planetary imperatives or risk obsolescence through normative dissonance. This article interrogates the legal and conceptual tensions at the heart of this transition. It critically examines how investment tribunals have addressed disputes arising from climate-related regulation and probes the evolving contours of “legitimate expectations”, “fair and equitable treatment”, and regulatory risk under a changing global environmental order. It explores whether traditional treaty protections inadvertently constrain the sovereign regulatory space necessary for states to meet their climate obligations under international law, including the Paris Agreement and emerging customary norms concerning environmental stewardship. Drawing on doctrinal analysis, recent arbitral jurisprudence, and interdisciplinary insights from climate science and sustainable finance, the article proposes a rethinking of protection, risk, and responsibility in the investment law paradigm. It argues for a normative and structural realignment of investment treaties – through climate-responsive treaty language, public interest exceptions, and reimagined dispute settlement mechanisms – to ensure coherence between economic governance and environmental sustainability. Ultimately, it advances a vision of international investment law that is not merely compatible with, but actively facilitative of, the global climate transition.
Prince Uche Amadi (Mon,) studied this question.