Part III Presumptions and Inferences, 6 Evidentiary Presumptions

Subject(s):

Jurisdiction — Evidence

This chapter considers presumptions, which serve as an efficiency or prudential function in court proceedings. Tribunals can make findings of fact by reference to presumptions. The use of presumptions means that the tribunal makes a determination of fact that is not premised upon direct evidence or project-specific circumstantial evidence. The tribunal instead is convinced of the truth of a fact premised upon the proof of relevant general surrounding circumstances. The use of presumptions is ubiquitous in investor-state arbitrations, as it is in other domestic and international disputes, because the predicate of a legal claim typically is the asserted deviation by one or both the parties of relevant general practices or expected background circumstances by the other.