The constant exchange of investment assets poses a risk of ‘commoditisation’ of investment treaty claims. Nevertheless, both traditional and modern investment treaties contain sufficient safeguards against attempts by host State ‘insiders’ and third State ‘intruders’ to create artificial access to arbitration. First, the definition of ‘investment’ can filter genuine investments from bare acquisition of assets (ratione materiae). Second, the textual linkage between ‘investor’ and ‘investment’ strongly implies that ‘active contribution’ in the investment is required from assignees to qualify for protection (ratione personae). Third, the doctrine of abuse of rights prevents treaty shopping and internationalisation of domestic disputes (ratione temporis).

How should a civil court use a relevant conviction? Some have argued that a civil claim contesting the factual basis of a conviction should be struck out as an abuse of process unless new evidence is presented which “entirely changes the aspect of the case”. Such a high evidential requirement is wrong in principle, inconsistent with section 11 of the Civil Evidence Act 1968, and unjust in practice. The law should recognise that there are two distinct types of cases. The first is concerned with truly abusive claims, where the later civil suit is brought for an improper purpose or otherwise similarly abusive; there a high level of new evidence should be required. The second deals with challenges to convictions which are in principle permissible; there, if on the facts they have no real prospect of success, an application for summary judgment by the other party is the solution.

The Cambodia Tribunal's co-investigating judges' first order, for the provisional detention of Duch, one of the suspects for the atrocities committed by the regime of Democratic Kampuchea in the 1970s, addresses the application of the doctrines of male captus bene detentus and abuse of process. The order, confirmed by the pre-trial chamber, states, relying on those doctrines, that Duch's unreasonably long prior detention, ordered by the Cambodian Military Court, does not bar his provisional detention by the Cambodia Tribunal. This article argues that the order is in accordance with applications of the relevant doctrines by the international criminal tribunals in similar cases, and that, absent involvement of the international or hybrid tribunal, abuse of process can, and should, only be successfully applied in case of torture or serious mistreatment of the suspect.

Although the House of Lords has now made it clear that evidence obtained by means of torture conducted abroad by non-UK nationals is inadmissible in judicial proceedings in the United Kingdom, the position remains unsatisfactory. Restrictive approaches have been taken to many of the key issues, suggesting that there is still considerable scope for the use of evidence which is brought to light as a result of forms of ill-treatment which violate human rights standards. Moreover, the use of ‘foreign torture evidence’ by the executive is expressly sanctioned. Even if this strikes an appropriate balance between conflicting goals of public safety and judicial propriety, it cannot be said to further the realization of the international prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and is a poor reflection of the abhorrence of torture which the House of Lords itself says is a feature of domestic common law.