Welcome back to Drilled, Season 5 La Lucha Lungla.

When we left off, Chevron was strategizing some new ways to deal with the case in Ecuador.

In September 2009, the company filed another international arbitration complaint against

the government of Ecuador. This time, the Lago Agrio case was named directly.

Chevron claimed that by virtue of letting the case continue in its courts, Ecuador was violating

its bilateral investment treaty with the United States. Specifically, it argued that the case

violated various contracts between Texaco and the government, like that 1998 contract

that we keep hearing about, where the government signed off on Texaco's remediation work.

That complaint and the tribunal's response has gone on to become a major part of Chevron's

story about this case. So we're going to do something a little different today and do

a bit of an explainer about international investment arbitration.

Don't go! This stuff sounds so boring, but I swear it's really, really interesting.

And beyond that, it's just important to know, especially if you care about environmental

issues or climate change. In broad strokes, this system gives companies a certain amount

of legal cover that they claim enables them to confidently invest in foreign countries.

There are currently more than 2,600 preferential trade agreements. Those can be free trade agreements

by lateral investment treaties, all kinds of different things. Most of them provide access

to the investment arbitration system. Here's how it works.

In a so-called investor-state dispute arises, when a company wants to take government

to task for something, companies can file formal complaints with international tribunals.

There are a handful of these tribunals in the world, and a few different sets of guidelines

for how they work. Important to note here, companies can choose which tribunal to file

...