Systems of Legal Defence Used by Latin American Countries in Investment Disputes

This article describes the main features of the systems of legal defence that Latin American countries have been using when facing investment arbitration. It focuses on Argentina, Venezuela, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, and Costa Rica, as a group of countries representative of the region and examines their strategies of internalisation or externalisation of the State’s legal defence and briefly addresses whether a policy to prevent investment disputes is in place. The article concludes that there is no uniform strategy of Latin American countries for the legal defence of investment disputes, but the large majority of States follow a mixed approach employing in-house lawyers and external counsel. With respect to the prevention of investment disputes, only some countries in the region have considered a preventive approach, or foster the use of alternative dispute resolution (ADR).