Uzbekistan's New Bilateral Investment Treaty Standpoint: In Case of Uzbekistan-Turkey bit (2018) by F. Muminov and J. Górski About tdm tdm

4. Conclusion 
This paper exemplified the latest development of Uzbekistan’s BITs by scrutinizing the new 
Uzbekistan-Turkey BIT. Unlike other international instruments which mostly regulate 
intergovernmental relations, BITs have a unique feature of protection of foreign investment in 
the host country by granting basic substantial and procedural rights directly to private actors. 
For this reason, BITs are often seen as an effective tool to promote inward FDI. Currently, 
Uzbekistan has been experiencing modernization of investment policy and revision of its BITs 
where the new Uzbekistan –Turkey BIT can be considered a fruit of this reform. 
As discussed in this paper, Uzbekistan does not have its Model BIT and one could argue that 
it would advisable if Uzbekistan had one. A model BIT would reflect the host country’s 
investment policy and would make the legal framework of the host country more predictable 
and transparent. For the time being. Uzbekistan’s current BITs typically provide some 
information on Uzbekistan’s investment policy. Nonetheless, the main feature of Uzbekistan’s 
typical BITs has been that the application of substantial and procedural rights has been highly 
conditional upon on strict domestic legislation. The new Uzbekistan –Turkey BIT illustrates 
that Uzbekistan still adheres to its long-term BIT-related policies yet with some minor changes. 
In particular, the 
controlled entry model still exists in the Uzbekistan-Turkey BIT and the 
application of non-discrimination clauses is still only possible once investment has been 
established in accordance with domestic law. 
The changes consist in that some social commitments, such environmental and public health 
standards, were enshrined in the new treaty. It is highly likely that the scope of such social 
commitments will be operationalized based on practice under other BITs stemming from the 
Turkey Model BIT, from which such provisions in the Uzbekistan-Turkey BIT originate. 
Another novel provision related to procedural rights under the new Uzbekistan-Turkey BIT is 
a limited scope of consent to the arbitration is narrower compared with Uzbekistan’s typical 
BITs whereby Uzbekistan has now adopted a narrow formulation of the dispute settlement 
clause in its new BITs similar to Russia’s BITS.
52
Yukos Universal Limited (Isle of Man) vs The Russian Federation, PCA Case No. 2005-04/AA227, Interim 
Award on Jurisdiction and Admissibility, paras.587-600. 
53
Christoph Schreuer, ‘Investment Treaty Arbitration and Jurisdiction over Contractual Claims – the Vivendi I 
Case’ in Todd Weiler (ed), 
International Investment Law and Arbitration: Leading Cases from the ICSID, NAFTA, 
Bilateral Treaties and Customary International Law (Cameron May 2005) 281-325, 306. 

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Last but not least, the legality of investment is finally clearly defined. As it is seen before 
Uzbekistan successfully defended two investment cases (
Metal-Tech Ltd. vs The Republic of 
Uzbekistan and Spentex Netherlands vs Uzbekistan) in which investors’ claims were dismissed 
due to illegality of investment. Those cases best illustrate that Uzbekistan has used to illegality-
of-investment defense to escape its obligations thanks to this treaty loophole. However, it is 
unacceptable in any case that the host country would first tolerate foreign investors’ breeches 
of domestic legislation and subsequently use such breeches against the investor in an 
investment dispute. This is all the more problematic in host countries which lack of 
transparency and predictability of their domestic legislation. Avoiding its international 
commitments under BITs would damage the image of the host country in the international 
community and would send a negative message to foreign investors. It remains to be seen to 
what extent the lack-letter provisions of the new Uzbekistan-Turkey BIT will mitigate such 
risk in practice. In this regard, the new Uzbekistan-Turkey BIT provides clearer provisions, 
including the legality of investments, than the previous Uzbekistan-Turkey BIT.