NCCR - Molinuevo Martín

Martin Molinuevo joins the IP8 team as a doctoral candidate and researcher. His doctoral dissertation focuses on the settlement of disputes in international trade and investment in services, where he draws his attention to WTO dispute settlement and investor-State arbitration. In addition, he explores issues related to the expansion of regional and bilateral agreements on services and its influence on the multilateral system, as well as the interaction between disciplines on services and investment at the bilateral, regional and multilateral level.

Molinuevo has worked as a consultant to the World Bank and to the WTO on issues relating to international agreements in investment and services. Before joining the WTI, he worked as a legal officer at the Legal Affairs Division of the WTO, and as an economic affairs officer in the International Investment Agreements section of UNCTAD. He has been a research fellow for EU-Mercosur negotiations at the Observatori de la Globalitzacio of the Universitat de Barcelona. Molinuevo obtained a Master in International Relations cum laude from the Università degli Studi di Bologna and holds a law degree from the Universidad de Buenos Aires.

Research

With the first two GATS cases decided, the subject of how dispute in services disciplines are to be resolved and whether there exist overlaps with other international fora resolving conflicts in services-related areas has emerged. Martin’s Ph.D. project analyses the specificities of GATS disputes in the WTO dispute settlement mechanism, and identifies areas of overlaps between the WTO scope with investment arbitration courts stemming from investment agreements. Additionally, he draws his attention to particular legal questions of GATS disciplines, based on WTO law and jurisprudence.

          1. WTO dispute settlement mechanism and its functioning in disputes over trade in services. Interrelation between GATS disciplines and the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding.

          2. Procedures and jurisprudence of international fora settling disputes over services trade (ICSID, international arbitration courts, inter alia), and its areas of overlap with WTO dispute settlement mechanism.

          3. Legal problems arising from the overlap between the investment and services agreements.

          4. Patterns of rule-making for FDI in services, its disciplines and impediments at different levels of international regulation (bilateral, regional, multilateral).

          5. Legal aspects and of particular GATS provisions, such as GATS disciplines on economic integration, market access, and interrelation between market access and national treatment obligations.

          6. Services and investment agreement in Latin America and East Asia as sample regions.