Just Energy Transition Partnerships, 'Green' Investments and Investment Treaties

Published on March 2026

Key Messages

• Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETPs) demand extensive policy and legal reforms to create enabling environments for scaling up private investment in clean energy.
• Investment treaty protections can have the effect of entrenching such enabling environments and make it costly for host states to alter subsidies or regulatory environments in response to changing needs or unforeseen outcomes.
• Any regulatory reforms introduced and incentive schemes developed to mobilise private investment in clean energy could potentially form the basis of an investor’s legitimate expectations that it will benefit from the regulatory regime and incentive programme throughout the life cycle of its project.
• If the host country adjusts the regulatory framework applicable to covered investments and iit reduces investor returns, the investor may file an investment treaty claim before an arbitral tribunal to seek compensation for losses resulting from the breach of its legitimate expectation of regulatory stability.

 

This briefing is authored by:

• Dr Anil Yilmaz Vastardis, Senior Lecturer, Essex Law School. University of Essex, UK

Author