CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VIII (2) ContEurVIII2 | Page 17

SAREN ABGARYAN interpreted, which can be burdensome for tribunals for the interpretation in cases of investor-state disputes. Full Protection and Security Clause Full protection and security (PFS) clauses have particular applications for foreign investors in times of civil unrest, public disturbances, and violence, and can also include non-violent situations when investors are deprived of legal security and protection. It encompasses the damages caused to investors due to governments’ unlawful actions or inactions that cause investors to suffer losses. 57 There have been considerable arbitral awards that interpret the FPS clause narrowly only to include protection against the physical security of the investment, and this has seen extensive discussion by a number of authorities in academia. 58 FPS clauses can also be interpreted more broadly to include legal protection, business protection, physical protection (police protection), and even economic regulatory powers. 59 The view of broader interpretation was advanced in arbitral decisions. In certain cases, tribunals merely admitted that the scope of FPS could be wider than physical security and, in other cases, the tribunals defined the wider scope to include also legal and business protection. The Armenia – China BIT’s FPS clause does not clarify whether the parties expect security limited to physical protection, or if protection go beyond that to include legal and business protection. Nationalization and Expropriation Clause Expropriation and nationalization can be defined as the outright physical seizure of an investor’s property or its mandatory legal title transfer to the state or a state-mandated third party. However, some measures carried out by the state might not manifest as a physical seizure of the property but might substantially and permanently damage the interest of investor, highly decrease the economic value of its property,                                                              57 UNCTAD, Investor-State Disputes Arising from Investment Treaties: A Review(New York and Geneva, 2005, 40-1). 58 See e.g.,Mahnaz Malik “The Full Protection and Security Standard Comes of Age: Yet another challenge for states in investment treaty arbitration?” International Institute for Sustainable Development, (2012): 7-9; Nartnirun Junngam,"The Full Protection and Security Standard in International Investment Law: What and Who Is Investment Fully Protected and Secured From," Am. U. Bus. L. Rev. 7 (2018): 61-2. 59 Thomas Wälde, "Energy Charter Treaty-based Investment Arbitration," Transnational Dispute Management 1, no. 3 (2004): 390-1. 17