Khemisset Potash: ICSID Tribunal Refuses Morocco’s Bid to Split the Arbitration

y a decision of July 17, made public on the 20th by the British company Emmerson, the arbitral tribunal of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes rejected Morocco’s request for bifurcation.

Rabat wanted its jurisdictional objections settled as a preliminary matter; the arbitrators chose to examine them together with the dispute itself. The objections to jurisdiction remain wholly intact.

The case dates to 2023, when the regional unified investment commission set aside the environmental impact study for the mining project, judged too thirsty in a kingdom worn by drought.

Emmerson, which had made Khemisset its sole asset, now claims 1.215 billion dollars under the bilateral investment treaty binding London to Rabat since 2002.

The proceedings will settle what a state’s right to refuse a mine in the name of its scarcest resource is worth before an international tribunal.

Photo: Delpha, CC BY-SA 4.0.