Berlin, 22.04.2026: Germany is published in a ¹ published today by eight European organisations, including PowerShift ², CAN Europe and Global Justice Now. study classified as one of the three European countries with the most harmful investment protection policy. The UK is the worst performer.
The results were obtained in the run-up to the First conference on the phase-out of fossil fuels It will be held in Colombia from 24 to 29 April. There, the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) ³ system is discussed as a central obstacle to the phase-out of fossil fuels.
Fabian Flues, author of the report and investment protection expert at PowerShift:
“Intransparent arbitral tribunals jeopardise ambitious climate protection and limit our democracy. The fact that Germany ranks third last in Europe in the ranking underlines the urgent need for action. The federal government must finally start terminating the contracts that allow arbitration. The international climate conference in Colombia, which is now underway, must be a starting signal for this.”
Based on a comprehensive data analysis, the report evaluates “European ISDS Scorecard: a ranking of the harmful effects of 30 countries’ investment treaties’ European countries on the scope of their investment protection agreements, their actual use in ISDS procedures and the impact of ISDS on climate protection. Part of the publication is an interactive scorecard. This shows:
- Germany is in third place overall among the countries with the most harmful investment protection policy and has concluded a particularly large number of agreements with ISDS, which also make it difficult to exit the ISDS system due to particularly long ‘sunset clauses’.
- The UK has the worst record overall, as UK investors in the mining and fossil fuel sectors are particularly lamentable and UK investment protection agreements protect a particularly large amount of CO2 emissions.
- The Netherlands followed closely behind. Dutch investors (in many cases shell companies with no actual business activity) have filed more group lawsuits than any other European country.
- Norway has already terminated half of its already few agreements, which shows that it is quite possible for European countries to take alternative paths.
The report highlights Europe’s central role within the global ISDS architecture and reveals a highly concentrated system in which a small group of countries – the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain and Switzerland – bear a disproportionate share of the agreements, procedures and climate-related risks posed by this ‘shadow system’.
Colombia, co-organiser of First conference on the phase-out of fossil fuels, has just announced, that it intends to exit the ISDS system. As ISDS is a central issue on the agenda of the conference, activists across Europe call on their governments to "take the opportunity" to plan a coordinated exit from the ISDS system together with other participating countries.
The report "European ISDS Scorecard: a ranking of the harmful effects of 30 countries’ investment treaties’ including the interactive scorecard can now be found here: https://power-shift.de/isds-scorecard/
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact:
- Fabian Flues, Trade and Investment Policy Officer at PowerShift: fabian.flues@power-shift.de, +49 (0)30 308 821 92
Notes for the editors:
1. The report is published jointly by Global Justice Now and the Trade Justice Movement in the UK, PowerShift in Germany, CAN Europe, the European Trade Justice Coalition and the Veblen Institute in France, Platforma Troca in Portugal and Alliance Sud in Switzerland.
2. PowerShift is a Berlin-based environmental and human rights organization. Our goal is an ecologically and socially just world. With extensive research, we examine political processes, identify the problems of an unjust global economic system and develop alternative courses of action. Through lobbying, we encourage decision-makers in politics to set the necessary political framework conditions for change. We carry out actions and campaigns and forge strong networks with other organisations, social movements and citizens. Together we get involved.
3. ISDS clauses are provisions enshrined in many trade and investment agreements. They allow companies to sue states before private arbitral tribunals outside national legal systems if they take measures such as environmental or health regulations that, from the companies’ point of view, affect their profits, often with compensation amounts in the billions.
The scorecard assesses 30 European countries – the 27 EU Member States as well as Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom – in terms of their structural integration with the ISDS system. In doing so, the perspective of the home state is taken into account in order to analyze which countries and business actors are significantly driving the system as the author of ISDS lawsuits.
Ten indicators cover different dimensions of this participation: from the size of a country's active ISDS contract network, to the number and financial scale of cases brought by its investors, to the investments in fossil fuels that safeguard those contracts. The raw values were then normalized, merged into a composite index and weighted and converted to a scale of 0 to 10. Higher values stand for greater participation in the ISDS system. The full methodology is available on request.
