La High Court of Australia (Kiefel CJ, Gageler, Gordon, Edelman, Steward, Gleeson and Jagot JJ) 12 de abril de 2023 (Kingdom of Spain v Infrastructure Services Luxembourg S.à.r.l. [2023] HCA 11, S43/2022 desestimó por unanimidad un recurso relativo a la interpretación del Convenio sobre Arreglo de Diferencias Relativas a Inversiones entre Estados y Nacionales de otros Estados de1965.

Antecedentes

Las cuestiones planteadas ante el Tribunal se referían a si, y en qué medida, la adhesión de un Estado extranjero al Convenio del CIADI, y el acuerdo concomitante a los artículos 53, 54 y 55, constituye una renuncia a la inmunidad del Estado extranjero en virtud de la Convención de los Estados Extranjeros. inmunidad del Estado extranjero en virtud de la Ley de Inmunidades de los Estados Extranjeros de 1985 (Cth) («la Ley») frente a procesos judiciales australianos relativos al reconocimiento y ejecución de laudos arbitrales.

Los demandados, basándose en el Tratado sobre la Carta de la Energía (1994), iniciaron un procedimiento arbitral contra el Reino de España («España») en virtud del Convenio del CIADI y obtuvieron un laudo de 101 millones de euros e iniciaron un procedimiento ante el Tribunal Federal de Australia para ejecutar el laudo en virtud de la Ley de Arbitraje Internacional de 1974 (Cth), que da efecto al Convenio del CIADI en Australia.

La cuestión era si España había renunciado a la inmunidad del Estado extranjero en virtud de los arts. 9 y 10 de la Ley, que establecen que un Estado extranjero goza de inmunidad de jurisdicción ante los tribunales australianos salvo que se haya sometido a la jurisdicción de los tribunales australianos. jurisdicción de los tribunales australianos, salvo que se haya sometido a dicha jurisdicción por acuerdo (incluido un tratado). tratado).

El juez de primera instancia sostuvo que los arts. 53, 54 y 55 del acuerdo implicaban una renuncia de España su inmunidad de reconocimiento y ejecución.que fue condenada a pagar a los demandados 101 millones de euros más los intereses correspondientes.

La High Court, al desestimar el recurso, sostuvo que, dado que España era objeto de un laudo vinculante del CIADI su aceptación de los artículos 53, 54 y 55 del Convenio del CIADI equivalía a una renuncia a la inmunidad de jurisdicción de los Estados extranjeros. Estado extranjero de la competencia de los tribunales australianos para reconocer y ejecutar, pero no para ejecutar, dicho laudo. ejecutar dicho laudo.

También sostuvo que el principio de Derecho internacional según el cual una renuncia a la inmunidad en virtud del artículo 10 de la Ley debe ser «expresa» no debe entenderse en el sentido de negar el papel ordinario y natural de las implicaciones para dilucidar el significado de las palabras expresas.

Asimismo la High Court determinó que las palabras «reconocimiento», «ejecución» y «cumplimiento» de los arts. 53, 54 y 55 del del Convenio del CIADI se utilizan por separado y con significados diferentes. El reconocimiento es la obligación de reconocer el laudo como vinculante, la ejecución es la obligación de hacer cumplir cualquier obligación pecuniaria impuesta por el laudo como si éste fuera una sentencia firme de un tribunal del Estado contratante, y la ejecución se refiere a los medios por los que se da efecto a una sentencia que ejecuta el laudo. de la sentencia. No hay ninguna diferencia real entre el texto inglés y los textos francés y español de los arts. 53, 54 y 55 en lo que respecta a la distinción entre reconocimiento y ejecución, por un lado, y ejecución, por otro. por un lado, y la ejecución, por otro.

El Tribunal concluyó que las resoluciones dictadas por los tribunales inferiores se calificaban correctamente de órdenes de reconocimiento y ejecución.

A continuación se reproduce el texto final de la decisión de la High Court (con omisión de las notas a pie de página:

Waiver of immunity from court processes concerning recognition or enforcement in Art 54

(i) The text and purpose of Art 54

67. Spain’s primary submission on this appeal was that Art 54 is not concerned with awards sought to be enforced against a State in a foreign court. Spain argued that the express words of Art 54 are not sufficiently clear to amount to a waiver of immunity from court processes concerning recognition or enforcement.
68. Spain’s primary submission concerning the interpretation of Art 54(1) was that, in its application in Australia, it contemplated recognition and enforcement in three circumstances: (i) if a State had an award against an investor and sought recognition and enforcement in an Australian court; (ii) if an investor had an award against Australia (which is not entitled to foreign State immunity in Australia) and sought recognition and enforcement against Australia in an Australian court; and (iii) if an investor had an award against a foreign State and sought recognition and enforcement against the foreign State in an Australian court and the foreign State chose to waive immunity over the proceeding. Spain argued that since Art 54(1) said nothing «expressly» about a waiver of immunity from jurisdiction by a foreign State, there should be no inference drawn that a foreign State had waived that immunity by agreement to Art 54(1).
69. Spain’s submission requires the text of Arts 53–55 to be read in a contorted manner. In light of the effect of the provision in Art 53 that awards shall be «binding» on Contracting States, together with the preservation in Art 55 of immunity from execution only (subject to the laws of Contracting States), it would distort the terms of Art 54(1) to require separate conduct that amounted to a waiver of immunity before an award could be recognised and enforced against a foreign State. On Spain’s interpretation, Art 55 would also be inaccurate, because Art 54(1) would then preserve to a Contracting State a much greater immunity than merely immunity from execution subject to the laws of the Contracting State.
70. Spain submitted that since Arts 53 and 54(2) make no reference to execution, and since Art 54(3) leaves execution (and any immunity from execution) to be governed by the laws of the jurisdiction in which execution is sought, Art 55 would be redundant or surplus on the interpretation we prefer. This possible surplusage of Art 55 is, however, a consequence of the plain meaning of «execution» in Art 55 which, as explained above, must be adopted as a matter of text, principle, context, and purpose. The view that Art 55 has no independent work to do, other than reinforcement of the limits in Arts 53 and 54, is also supported by the travaux préparatoires to the ICSID Convention, to which reference has already been made.
71. The textual difficulties with Spain’s primary submission are compounded when the ordinary meaning of Art 54(1) is understood, as the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties requires, in light of its object and purpose, which includes mitigating sovereign risk. Although Spain correctly submitted that the main reason for the inclusion of Art 54 was to ensure that Contracting States were able to obtain effective remedies against private investors, this was to ensure parity with the obligations of the Contracting States because it was otherwise assumed that participating nation states would abide by arbitral outcomes. This assumption is most explicit in the provision in Art 53(1), restating customary international law that each party, that is each Contracting State, «shall abide by and comply with the terms of the award», except to the extent to which the terms are stayed. In that sense, Art 53 is the «primary provision».
72. The assumption of parity was also recorded in the summary record of proceedings of the consultative meeting held at Santiago, where Mr Broches observed that the provision that became Art 54 «was intended to protect the interests of the host States which while they were themselves internationally bound to comply with the award, might want an effective assurance that the private party would be compelled to do the same». Again, following the last consultative meeting in Bangkok, a Chairman’s Report prepared by Mr Broches referred to Art 54 as «establishing equality not only of rights, but also of obligations, between State[s] and investors». All of the drafts leading to the ICSID Convention thus referred «to recognition and enforcement against the parties in equal terms, without distinguishing between investors and host States». Giving effect to that purpose, the terms of Art 54 do «not distinguish between the recognition and enforcement of awards against investors, on the one side, and against host States, on the other».
73.  In light of the object and purpose of the ICSID Convention, Professor van den Berg has observed that a curiosity of the ICSID Convention is not that it requires recognition and enforcement of awards against foreign States, but that a foreign State which has agreed to arbitration is not deemed to also accept the consequence of execution. He explains the result – that Contracting States waive their immunity from jurisdiction in relation to recognition and enforcement but not any immunity that they have from execution – on the basis of political and economic considerations:

«Execution is commonly felt to be a ‘more intensive interference with the rights of a State.’ From the eco[n]omic point of view, restrictive immunity principles applied to execution could result in foreign States refraining from investment in countries in which they know their property could be subject to execution.» (footnote omitted)

(ii) International authority

74. As explained above, there is no real distinction between the United States provision permitting a waiver of immunity to be identified «either explicitly or by implication» and s 10(2) of the Foreign States Immunities Act permitting a waiver of immunity «by agreement». And, consistently with the caution that is required before drawing inferences of a waiver of immunity, United States courts have concluded, sometimes saying that they had little or no doubt, that entry into the ICSID Convention involves a waiver of immunity from jurisdiction.

75 The conclusion that the express terms of Art 54(1) involve a waiver of immunity from jurisdiction in relation to recognition and enforcement is also supported by the 1991 Report of the International Law Commission which, as explained above, was relied upon by Lord Goff in Pinochet [No 3] for his Lordship’s cautious approach to inferences supporting a waiver of immunity. That report referred to a rule of customary international law that a waiver of immunity be «expressed … in no uncertain terms». The International Law Commission gave examples of State practice where a State «has previously expressed its consent to such jurisdiction in the provision of a treaty or an international agreement». One of those examples was the ICSID Convention.

Spain’s alternative submission: waiver limited to bare recognition

76. Alternatively, Spain argued that Art 54 contemplates only a waiver of immunity from court processes relating to recognition, and not enforcement, relying heavily on the French and Spanish texts which use execution and enforcement interchangeably. In this respect, Spain submitted that the orders of the Full Court went beyond bare recognition.
77. The only matter supporting Spain’s alternative submission, that any waiver of immunity from jurisdiction should be confined to recognition, is the different linguistic phrasing used in the French and Spanish texts of Arts 53–55. But, for the reasons explained above, the materials before this Court strongly militate against any conclusion that the French and Spanish texts of Arts 53–55 were intended to mean, or have been interpreted to mean, anything different from the English text. No basis has been shown to conclude that those texts bear a different meaning from the English text, preserving, subject to the laws of a Contracting State, the immunity from court processes relating to enforcement and not merely immunity from court processes relating to execution.

 

Decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union in Republic of Moldova v Komstroy LLC

78. A final, although not fully developed, submission by Spain concerned the effect of the decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union in Republic of Moldova v Komstroy LLC. In that case, the European Court of Justice applied the earlier decision of Slovak Republic v Achmea BV and decided that the agreement to arbitrate in the Energy Charter Treaty must be interpreted as not being applicable to disputes between a member state of the European Union and an investor of another member state where the dispute concerned an investment by the investor in the first member state.
79. Spain’s contention was that this Court would «take cognisance» of Komstroy in identifying whether Spain had agreed to submit to the jurisdiction of the Australian courts for the purposes of the Foreign States Immunities Act. That contention must fail because the relevant agreement arose from Spain’s entry into the ICSID Convention, which included its agreement as to the consequences of an award rendered pursuant to the ICSID Convention.

Conclusion

80 The appeal should be dismissed with costs. It is unnecessary to consider any further the grounds in the notice of contention, which were raised by the respondents only in the event that they were unsuccessful on their primary submissions. No notice of any application for costs was given to the European Commission so there should be no order as to costs against the European Commission in relation to its unsuccessful application for leave to appear as amicus curiae.