Nigeria Calls for UN Reforms to Protect Sovereignty in Investor-State Disputes

Nigeria's Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, called on the United Nations to spearhead reforms to the international investor-state dispute settlement system to protect national sovereignty, citing the country's near-catastrophic experience in the Process and Industrial Developments arbitration case. Fagbemi made the appeal on Thursday during the Heads of Delegations Roundtable at the Chief Legal Advisors Forum 2026 in Singapore.

Fagbemi argued that reforms should strengthen domestic courts rather than allow them to be bypassed in resolving disputes between foreign investors and states. He stated that Nigeria's experience in the PID case, which involved a potential liability of over $11.5 billion, underscored the urgent need for greater clarity and predictability in the calculation of damages in international arbitration. "In the notorious case of PID, damages were calculated on the basis of compound interest, which would have had a crippling effect to the tune of billions of dollars," Fagbemi said, according to a statement from his media aide, Kamarudeen Ogundele.

The dispute originated from a failed 2010 gas processing agreement between Nigeria and the...