On April 30, 2019, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in Opinion 1/17 of the Court that the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism under the EU-Canada free trade agreement, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), is compatible with EU law. The provision at issue creates a mechanism that would allow investors to enforce rights against the host state of an investment before an international arbitration tribunal and the aim was to establish an “Investment Court System” (ICS). As noted in the press releases, in 2017, Belgium requested an opinion from the Court, stating its concerns “as to the effects of that mechanism on the exclusive jurisdiction of the Court over the definitive interpretation of EU law, and therefore the autonomy of the EU legal order, as to its compatibility with the general principle of equal treatment and the requirement that EU law should be effective, and as to whether that mechanism complies with the right of access to an independent and impartial tribunal.” The Court held that the ICS mechanism was designed such that it would not infringe on EU law in the three areas Belgium raised: “CETA does not confer on the envisaged tribunals any jurisdiction to interpret or apply EU law other than that relating to the provisions of that agreement.”