A quick note that Harvard Law Review just published a note this month entitled Mediation of Investor-State Conflicts (Harvard Law Review, June 2014).  It’s very exciting to see this concept hitting the mainstream and the timing is good.  As the current litigation between Argentina and its unhappy bond holders demonstrates, alternate processes between states and their investors might work better!  The International Bar Association approved rules of mediation for investor-state disputes at the end of 2012.  Even more recently, the US has made a proposal to UNCITRAL for a convention on the enforcement of mediated agreements (what they are calling conciliated settlement agreements.)  While this is not concerning investor-state disputes, it is another example of the current favorable climate toward international mediation.  For more discussion, you can see the article that Nancy Welsh and I published last year here.  Hat Tip to Susan Franck for passing this along!