Preliminary exception on arbitration on the basis of treaties promoting and protecting investments

In investment treaty arbitration, preliminary objections can be defined as procedural issues raised by the States in order to contest arbitral tribunal jurisdiction or admissibility of an investor claim. With the rise of investment treaty arbitration, recourse to this litigation technique is getting more and more frequent. However, the submission of preliminary objections by the States, as well as their examination by the arbitral tribunals are frequently confusing. Our research focuses on the core concepts of jurisdiction and admissibility in international litigation in order to reconsider their distinction in a specialised field of international litigation - investment treaty arbitration. On the basis of this distinction, we propose a classification of preliminary issues according to their object. This classification will order the legal regime to be applied to each type of preliminary defence, thus putting some order in the submission of preliminary objections by the States and their examination by the arbitrators, examination which relates to their capacity to exercise their jurisdictional function.