Transnational Notes

 

On 10 June 2015, Professor Franco Ferrari, the Director of the Center for Transnational Litigation, Arbitration and Commercial Law, and the former Vice-President of the International Court of Justice, Ambassador Ambassador Bernardo Sepulveda Amor, formerly Ambassador to the United States of America and to the United Kingdom and Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Mexico, will discuss the positive effects of investment arbitration on the development of projects in Mexico by foreign companies. Please click here for the official program.

 

The Center for Transnational Litigation, Arbitration, and Commercial Law and  the Office of Global Programs will host a two day conference on Teaching Transnational Business Law and Arbitration. On Thursday, June 4^th the Center will host “Teaching International Commercial Arbitration Globally.” On Friday, June 5^th the Office of Global Programs will host “Teaching International Business Transactions Globally.”

 

Teaching Transnational Business Law and Arbitration

June 4-5, 2015 from 9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.

The Lester Pollack Colloquium Room

245 Sullivan Street, 9^th Floor

New York, NY 10012

The Center will host the April 2015 session of the Arbitration Forum entitled “Legitimacy of transnational commercial arbitration,” on Monday, April 27^th, 2015, from 6.00 – 8.00 pm, in the Lester Pollack Colloquium Room, Furman Hall 900 (245 Sullivan Street, New York, NY 10012).

The event will be moderated by the Center’s Executive Director, Franco Ferrari. Our distinguished speakers include  Diego P. Fernández Arroyo, Professor at the Sciences Po Law School in Paris, Global Professor at the NYU Paris Campus and Secretary-General of the International Academy of Comparative Law; Harold Hongju Koh, Sterling Professor of International Law at Yale Law School; Timothy G. Nelson, Partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP; and Edna Sussman, independent arbitrator and mediator and the Distinguished ADR Practitioner in Residence at Fordham University School of Law.

Please note that all discussions taking place during the Forum are subject to the Chatham House Rule.

The Center will host the March 2015 session of the Arbitration Forum, entitled “Public Purpose in International Law: Rethinking Regulatory Sovereignty in the Global Era.” The event will take place on Monday, March 23^rd, 2015, from 6.00 – 8.00 pm, in the Lester Pollack Colloquium Room, Furman Hall 900 (245 Sullivan Street, New York, NY 10012).

The event will be moderated by the Center’s Executive Director, Franco Ferrari. Our distinguished speakers include Jack Coe, Jr., Faculty Director of Pepperdine’s LL.M in International Commercial Arbitration; Harold Hongju Koh,  Sterling Professor of International Law at Yale Law School; Pedro J. Martinez-Fraga, partner in Bryan Cave LLP’s International Arbitration and Litigation Practice Group; and C. Ryan Reetz, co-founder and office managing partner of the Miami, Florida office of Bryan Cave LLP.

On that occasion, the book just published by Cambridge University Press, co-authored by Mr. Pedro Martinez-Fraga and Mr. Ryan Reetz, with the same title will be discussed.

Since seating is limited, please rsvp by March 20th, 2015, by sending an email to cassy.rodriguez@nyu.edu.

Please note that the session will be videotaped.

The Center will host the February 2015 session of the Arbitration Forum, entitled “Iura novit arbiter” on Monday, February 23, 2015 from 6:00-8:00 p.m. in the Lester Pollack Colloquium Room, Furman Hall 900 (245 Sullivan Street, New York, NY 10012).

The event will be moderated by the Center’s Executive Director, Franco Ferrari. Our distinguished speakers include Mr. Christian Leathley, partner in the international arbitration group of Herbert Smith Freehills LLP; Mr. Christian P. Alberti, AVP/Director of the International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR), the international division of the American Arbitration Association (AAA); and Mr. John Fellas, partner in the New York office of Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP,  and co-chair of the Arbitration Practice and co-chair of the International Practice of that firm.

Please note that all discussions taking place during the Forum are subject to the Chatham House Rule.

The Center is co-hosting a two-day conference entitled “Convergence and Divergence of Investment and International Commercial Arbitration” to take place on Nov. 19^th and 20^th in Santo Domingo. During this conference, some of the foremost arbitration practitioners and scholars will look into whether there is cross-fertilization between international commercial arbitration and investment arbitration. What the speakers want to do, with the help of the audience, which will be allowed to ask questions after the various sessions, is to determine whether international commercial arbitration and investment arbitration are necessarily to be considered so different that they cannot influence each other.

 

For the conference program please click here

The Center will host the October 2014 session of the Arbitration Forum, entitled: “Mobility of Judgments in the EU: Reality, or just a Dream?” with Professor Bettina Heiderhoff and Professor Franco Ferrari.

The event will be held on Monday, October 27, 2014, from 6:00-8:00 p.m.  in the Lester Pollack Colloquium Room, Furman Hall 900 (245 Sullivan Street, New York, NY 10012).

Please note that all discussions taking place during the Forum are subject to the Chatham House Rule.

Since space is limited, those interested are kindly asked to RSVP at cassy.rodriguez@nyu.edu

 

The Center will host this academic year’s first session of the Arbitration Forum, entitled: The Foreign State in International Civil Litigation before National Courts on Monday, September 22, 2014 from 6:00-8:00 p.m.  in the Lester Pollack Colloquium Room, Furman Hall 900 (245 Sullivan Street, New York, NY 10012).

The event will be moderated by the center’s Executive Director, Franco Ferrari. Our distinguished speakers include Campbell McLachlan, Professor of International Law at Victoria University of Wellington, Linda J. Silberman, Martin Lipton Professor of Law at New York University and Co-Director of the Center and Harold Hongju Koh,  Sterling Professor of International Law at Yale Law School.

Please note that all discussions taking place during the Forum are subject to the Chatham House Rule.

Since space is limited, those interested are kindly asked to RSVP at cassy.rodriguez@nyu.edu

 

This is to announce the April 2014 session of the Arbitration Forum of the Center for Transnational Litigation, Arbitration and Commercial Law, entitled “The Scope of Consent in International Commercial Arbitration.” The event will take place on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2014, from 6.00 – 8.00 pm, in the Lester Pollack Colloquium Room, Furman Hall 900 (245 Sullivan Street, New York, NY 10012).

The event will be moderated by the center’s Executive Director, Prof. Franco Ferrari. Our distinguished speakers include Mr. David St. John Sutton,  Barrister (England & Wales), Avocat à la Cour de Paris, formerly Solicitor (England & Wales), and Solicitor (Hong Kong), Mr. John Fellas, partner in the New York office of Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP, and co-chair of the Arbitration Practice and co-chair of the International Practice of that firm and Mr. Pedro J. Martinez-Fraga, partner in Bryan Cave LLP’s international arbitration and litigation practice, co-leader of the firm’s International Dispute Resolution Practice Group globally and co-founder of the Miami office.

Since seating is limited, please rsvp by April 21st, 2014, by sending an email to cassy.rodriguez@nyu.edu.

Please note that the Chatham House rule applies.

This is to announce the March 24^th, 2014, session of the Arbitration Forum of the Center for Transnational Litigation, Arbitration and Commercial Law, entitled “Admissibility v. Jurisdiction in International Arbitration”.

The event will take place on Monday, March 24^th, 2014, from 6.00 – 8.00 pm, in the Lester Pollack Colloquium Room, Furman Hall 900 (245 Sullivan Street, New York, NY 10012).

It is a great pleasure to be able to announce that on the occasion of that session, Ms. Monique Sasson will give a talk on the aforementioned and that Mr. Timothy G. Nelson and Prof. Mathias Forteau agreed to act as commentators.

Monique Sasson initially qualified as an Italian Avvocato and practiced in Rome, where she appeared before arbitral tribunals and Italian courts. In 2000, she joined Herbert Smith’s international litigation/arbitration practice group in London, qualified as an English solicitor (and subsequently as a solicitor advocate), and acted for clients in a number of international arbitration cases as well as litigation matters. In 2009, Monique obtained her Ph.D. degree, and the following year Kluwer published a revised version of her doctoral thesis under the title Substantive Law in Investment Treaty Arbitration: the Unsettled Relationship between International law and Municipal Law. Monique currently resides in New York City, is a member of the New York Bar, and serves on the New York City Bar Committee on Arbitration.  She is an associate editor of Kluwer Arbitration Blog, and the Co-Managing Editor of the ITA Arbitration Report and the ITA Board of Reporters.  Monique is also the Co-Managing Editor of World Trade and Arbitration Materials, Co-Managing Editor of theITA Scoreboard of Adherence to Transnational Arbitration Treaties, and a Member at Large of the ITA Advisory Board and its Executive Committee.

Timothy G. Nelson represents clients in international disputes, including arbitration before ICSID, ICC, ICDR, and UNCITRAL. He has conducted and argued some of the larger recent Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) arbitrations before ICSID and UNCITRAL involving expropriation and unfair treatment of investors by host states, as well as high-profile United States litigation involving international law and arbitration. Mr. Nelson also has an active international commercial arbitration practice.

Mathias Forteau is Professor of Public International Law at the University of Paris Ouest, Nanterre-La Défense (France). He is also, since 2012, a Member of the International Law Commission of the United Nations (elected by the UN General Assembly for five years on November 2011). He is the former Secretary-General of the French Society for International Law (SFDI). He has published many books and articles on various fields of international law (especially on the law of State responsibility, the law of the United Nations and collective security, investment law, Statehood or the law of settlement of disputes) and is the co-editor of two leading French international law books the “Droit international public (Nguyen Quoc Dinh†)” (with P. Daillier and A. Pellet) (2009) and the French Commentary, article by article, of the UN Charter (with J.-P. Cot and A. Pellet) (2005). Moreover, he acted, and still acts, as Counsel and Advocate of many States before the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea or Arbitral Tribunals, in cases involving issues of State responsibility, boundary disputes, maritime delimitation, Statehood or investment law.

Since seating is limited, please rsvp by March 21^st, 2014, by sending an email to cassy.rodriguez@nyu.edu.

Please note that the Chatham House rule applies.

This is to announce the February 24^th, 2014, session of the Arbitration Forum of the Center for Transnational Litigation, Arbitration and Commercial Law, entitled “International Commercial Arbitral Awards as Investments”.

The event will take place on Monday, February 24^th, 2014, from 6.00 – 8.00 pm, in the Lester Pollack Colloquium Room, Furman Hall 900 (245 Sullivan Street, New York, NY 10012).

It is a great pleasure to be able to announce that on the occasion of that session, Prof. Luca G. Radicati di Brozolo will give a talk on the aforementioned and that Prof. José Alvarez, Mr. Brian King and Mr. Laurence Shore agreed to act as commentators.

Luca G. Radicati di Brozolo is a tenured professor of Private International Law at the Catholic University of Milan, where he also teaches International Arbitration and Transnational Commercial Law. He is the author of five books and a co-editor of a commentary on international arbitration, as well as of over 100 articles and other contributions on a variety of topics of public and private international law, arbitration law, the law of the European Union, competition law, telecommunications and banking law. He gave a course on Mandatory Rules and International Commercial Arbitration at the Hague Academy of International Law in 2003. Prof. Radicati di Brozolo is a founding partner of the arbitration and litigation boutique Radicati di Brozolo Sabatini in Milan, where he practices both as counsel and as arbitrator. He is a member of the International Court of Arbitration of the ICC. He was, inter alia, counsel for the claimant in ICSID Case ARB/05/07 Saipem v. People’s Republic of Bangladesh. He is a member of the ICC Court of International Arbitration. Prior to founding his firm, he was for thirty years a partner in two of the leading Italian firms, having started his professional career at the Office of the Legal Advisor of the Bank of International Settlements.

José Enrique Alvarez, a former president of the American Society of International Law and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, has made substantial scholarly contributions to a wide range of subjects within international law, including the law-generating roles of international organizations, the challenges facing international criminal tribunals, and the international investment regime. Along with NYU colleague Benedict Kingsbury, Alvarez is the co-editor-in-chief of the leading peer-reviewed journal in the field, the American Journal of International Law. In September 2013, he was elected to the Institut de Droit International, a Nobel Prize–winning organization consisting of the world’s leading public international lawyers. Prof. Alvarez has been special adviser on international law to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, an attorney adviser with the Office of the Legal Adviser of the US Department of State, and has taught at Columbia, the University of Michigan, George Washington, and Georgetown law schools. He received a BA summa cum laude from Harvard University, first-class honors in jurisprudence from Oxford University’s Magdalen College, and a JD cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was topics editor of the Harvard International Law Journal. In 2009, he delivered a series of lectures at The Hague Academy of International Law on the subject of foreign investment, subsequently published as The Public International Law Regime Governing International Investment (2011).

Brian King is a partner in the international arbitration group at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. Prior to returning to New York in 2007, he headed the arbitration group in the firm’s Amsterdam office for seven years. Mr. King’s practice centers on acting as counsel or arbitrator in investment treaty and international commercial disputes. He has represented both investors and States, as well as some of the largest European and U.S. corporations. A 1990 graduate of the NYU Law School, Mr. King, who joined NYU as scholar-in-residence in November 2013, regularly speaks and publishes on arbitration-related topics.

Laurence Shore is a partner in the New York City office of Herbert Smith Freehills LLP.  He is a member of the firm’s international arbitration practice group. His law degree is from Emory University, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Emory Law Journal (1988-89), and he holds a Ph.D. in American History from The Johns Hopkins University. Laurence’s publications include “You Can Bet the Company But Not the State: The Proper and Improper Conduct of Sovereigns in Arbitration”, World Arbitration and Mediation Review (2009); and “Arbitration, Rhetoric, Proof: The Unity of International Arbitration Across Cultures”, in Contemporary Issues in International Arbitration and Mediation: The Fordham Papers (A.W. Rovine ed., 2010). He is also the co-author of International Investment Arbitration: Substantive Principles (2007).

 

To RSVP, please send an email to Cassy Rodriguez at cassy.rodriguez@nyu.edu

The Center will host an Arbitration Forum, entitled “Limits to Party Autonomy in International Arbitration” on Monday, February 3, 2014,  from 6.00 – 8.00 pm, in Vanderbilt hall, room 214 (40 Washington Square South, New York, NY 10012).

The event will be moderated by the center’s Executive Director, Prof. Franco Ferrari. Our distinguished speakers include Prof. Giuditta Cordero-Moss, professor and director of the Department for Private Law at the University of Oslo,   Prof. Diego P. Fernández Arroyo,  professor and co-director of Global Governance Studies at the School of Law of Sciences Po, Paris, Mr. Stefano Azzali, Secretary General of the Milan Chamber of Arbitration and Secretary Treasurer of the International Federation of Commercial Arbitration Institutions (IFCAI) and Prof. Luca G. Radicati di Brozolo,  professor of Private International Law at the Catholic University of Milan.

Please note that all discussions taking place during the Forum are subject to the Chatham House Rule.

Since space is limited, those interested are kindly asked to R.S.V.P.  Please send an email to Cassy Rodriguez at cassy.rodriguez@nyu.edu to confirm your attendance.

The Center, in collaboration with the New York/Washington D.C. Chapter of the Spanish Arbitration Club, will host the January 2014 Arbitration Forum, entitled “The Star Expert” on Tuesday, January 21st, 2014, from 6.00 – 8.00 pm, in Lipton Hall, D’Agostino Hall, 108 West Third  St., New York, NY 10012.

The event will be moderated by the center’s Executive Director, Prof. Franco Ferrari. Our distinguished speakers include Prof. Bernardo Cremades,  leading Spanish international arbitration practitioner, Mr. Grant Hanessian, Co-Chair of Baker & McKenzie’s International Arbitration Practice Group and Mr. Pedro Martinez-Fraga, partner in DLA Piper’s international arbitration and litigation practice.

Please note that all discussions taking place during the Forum are subject to the Chatham House Rule.

Since space is limited, those interested are kindly asked to R.S.V.P.  Please send an email to Cassy Rodriguez at cassy.rodriguez@nyu.edu to confirm your attendance.

 

The Center is proud to announce the November 2013 session of the Arbitration Forum of the Center for Transnational Litigation, Arbitration and Commercial Law, entitled “Abusive Claims, Impecunious Claimants and Security for Costs:  the Search for a Framework”, which will take place on Monday, November 25th, 2013, from 6.00 p.m. to 8.00 p.m., in the Lester Pollack Colloquium Room, Furman Hall 900 (245 Sullivan Street, New York, NY 10012).  The speakers will be Mr. Brian King, Mr. Domenico Di Pietro and Mr. Eric A. Schwartz.

Brian King is a partner in the international arbitration group at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.  Prior to returning to New York in 2007, he headed the arbitration group in the firm’s Amsterdam office for seven years.  Mr. King’s practice centers on acting as counsel or arbitrator in investment treaty and international commercial disputes.  He has represented both investors and States, as well as some of the largest European and U.S. corporations.  A 1990 graduate of the NYU Law School, Mr. King regularly speaks and publishes on arbitration-related topics. Mr. King is also this November’s scholar-in-residence at the Center for Transnational Litigation, Arbitration and Commercial Law.

Domenico Di Pietro, who graduated in law at University of Rome La Sapienza and received his LLM from Queen Mary, University of London, practises international arbitration with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in Rome and Milan. He has acted in numerous arbitrations under the rules of a great variety of arbitral institutions as well as in ad hoc proceedings. He is also active in investment arbitration, having advised and appeared in well-known ICSID cases, including annulment proceedings. Domenico has also acted in several sport disputes at the Athens and Beijing Olympics. Mr. Di Pietro lectures international arbitration at Roma Tre University. He has published extensively on international arbitration. He is qualified to practise in Italy and in England and Wales.

Eric A. Schwartz, a graduate of Dartmouth College and Yale Law School, is a partner in the New York and Paris offices of King & Spalding, where he specializes in international arbitration.  He is a former Secretary General and current Vice-President of the ICC International Court of Arbitration. Over the last 30 years, he has acted as counsel on behalf of some of the world’s largest companies, public authorities and sovereign states in international arbitration proceedings in all of the principal European arbitration venues, as well as in Africa, Asia and the US. In addition to his work as counsel, Mr. Schwartz regularly sits as an arbitrator. He has appeared as chair, sole arbitrator or co-arbitrator in proceedings under the rules of the AAA, CIETAC, ICC, ICSID, LCIA, SCC and UNICTRAL in arbitrations throughout the world.  He is also the author of dozens of articles on international arbitration practice as well as the co-author (with Yves Derains) of A Guide to the ICC Rules of Arbitration (Kluwer, 2nd ed. 2005). Mr. Schwartz is listed as one of the 25 “most highly regarded individuals” in the world in his field in Who’s Who Legal – Commercial Arbitration 2014.

Please note that all discussions taking place during the Forum are subject to the Chatham House Rule.

To rsvp, please send an email to cassy.rodriguez@nyu.edu.

On November 22, the Center – in collaboration with the Jerusalem Arbitration Center – will host a conference on “Solving Israeli-Palestinian Commercial Disputes.”

The event will be moderated by the Executive Director of the Center for Transnational Litigation, Arbitration and Commercial Law, Prof. Franco Ferrari and Prof. Maya Steinitz, University of Iowa College of Law. Speakers include Mr. Oren Shachor, ICC Israel, Ms. Yara Asad, ICC Palestine, and Mr. Mazen E. Qupty, ICC Palestine.

 

Please join us as we introduce the Jerusalem Arbitration Center at the NYU School of Law.

 

Solving Israeli-Palestinian Commercial Disputes:

Introducing the Jerusalem Arbitration Center

Friday, November 22, 2013

10:00am-12:00pm

Lester Pollack Colloquium Room, Furman Hall 900

245 Sullivan Street. New York, NY 10012

 

To RSVP, please click here

On October 7th, 2013, the Center hosted a seminar entitled “Interim Relief: What, Why, When, How.” The event was moderated by Prof. Franco Ferrari and featured talks by Prof. Massimo Benedettelli, Prof. George A. Bermann, Dr. Andrea Carlevaris, Mr. Domenico Di Pietro, Mr. Brian King, and Mr. Eric P.Tuchmann. For full program brochure click here

Interim Relief: What, Why, When, How?

New York University School of Law

The fourth Global ICC Young Arbitrator’s Forum conference took place in New York City on June, 27-29 2013. The conference gathered about two hundred practicing arbitration lawyers, young and old, from the four corners of the globe. The conference was co-hosted by the Center for Transnational Litigation and Commercial Law at New York University, School of Law.

Salim Moollan, vice-president of the ICC International Court of Arbitration, opened the first day with a keynote speech addressing how to foster legitimacy in international arbitration. Following Moollan’s opening remarks, the conference continued with a debate on the challenges to the current investment arbitration system: « Defying Investment Arbitration: Moral Hazards, Perceived Injustices and the Coming of a New Age.” which this blog attempts to briefly summarize.[1]

Clash of Paradigms

Before defying a system, one must be able to define it; which is no simple task. James Morrison (Allen Linklaters, Sydney) and Maxi Scherer (Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP and Queen Mary University of London), who moderated the debate, highlighted this difficulty by drawing a comparison to the platypus, an animal living in Australia. They argued that investment arbitration was as hard to define as this rare creature: Is it a bird? A mammal? A reptile? Or is it some strange hybrid of the three?

The platypus analogy was borrowed from Anthea Roberts’ 2013 article “Clash of Paradigms: Actors and Analogies Shaping the Investment Treaty System” (American Journal of International Law) in which she wrote that investment arbitration is a hybrid of many fields of law: while arbitration is clearly a creature of public international law, it also contains private international law dispute resolution mechanisms. As if this was not enough, investment arbitration also contains facets of public regulatory capacity, sovereign interests, and trade and human rights law. Roberts suggests that since the field of international investment law is a relatively new one, it is under-theorized. As a result, “when seeking to fill gaps, resolve ambiguities or understand the system’s nature” observers usually employ comparisons in order to clarify concepts or draw upon case-law from other sub-fields of international law. Given investment arbitration’s platypus-like diversity, one’s understanding of investment arbitration can vary wildly depending on one’s background. Lawyers trained in public international law, administrative law, human rights law, trade law or from a commercial litigation will each employ a different paradigm when dealing in investment arbitration, thereby influencing which actors they believe should prevail and which direction the system  should take.

The panelists were drawn from a variety of different backgrounds in order to provide a full spectrum of opinions concerning investment arbitration: John Crook, arbitrator and professorial lecturer at the George Washington University Law School who provided an academic perspective; Suzana Blades, Senior Counsel at ConocoPhillips, Houston who provided her view on arbitration from the investor side; Sophie Nappert, arbitrator and member of Three Verulam Buildings, London; and Anna Joubin-Bret, now in private practice but former Senior Legal Advisor on Investment, Technology and Enterprise Development of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) each provided perspective from inside the arbitration practice mindset. Leidylin Contreras, lawyer at the Office of the legal Advisor to the President, Presidency of the Dominican Republic, gave attendees the precious perspective from the host State, which is seldom heard in these debates.

These distinguished personalities all strove to provide conference attendees with some perspective concerning the recent backlash against investment arbitration. The latters all had in mind the stir caused by the report, “Profiting from Injustice”, published in 2012 by the Corporate Europe Observatory and the Transnational Institute, which accused law firms, arbitrators and financiers of fueling an investment arbitration boom out of mere pecuniary interests and of perpetuating a deeply unfair system from which the host States and their citizens are the obvious losers.

Slightly more constructive but no less caustic was the criticism of investment arbitration made by Sundaresh Menon, Chief Justice of Singapore, at the occasion of the 2012 ICCA Congress opening session. The growing complexity and “judicialisation” of investment arbitration procedure is necessarily followed by the explosion of delays and costs; the exclusivity of the arbitral “club” consisting of a small pool of specialized arbitrators from Europe and the United States, experts in commercial law but who are out of touch with the public interests of the countries affected by their actions and who are not held accountable to the people they affect; the moral hazards necessarily entailed by such an endogamous profession, characterized by multiple hats-wearing and the tension between the role of judge and businessman is fact; the arbitral discretion in the interpretation of open-textured treaty commitments without any oversight often leads to conflicting results and a lack of coherence and predictability, all of these elements lead to a disconnect between arbitration and its users, both States and investors.

Efficiency and Consistency

As an in-house lawyer for an investing company, Suzana Blades reminded the conference attendees that arbitration should be primarily about solving disputes and that arbitrators are drifting away from this imperative. “We want a decision, not a thesis.” she said, regretting the sometimes academic posture of certain arbitrators. “At the end of the day, the goal is to solve a dispute, not to develop international law.” She also argued that arbitrators are sometimes too deferential to the parties, allowing them to create extension, bifurcations or even trifurcations (!) in the proceedings for fear of seeing their award annulled for lack of due process, the consequence being significant delays in the delivery of a biding and enforceable award. For Blades, a decision given by an arbitral panel after six or seven years of litigation is not timely. In order to reconcile investment arbitration with its users, Blades urged that investment arbitration procedure should allow arbitrators to have a bolder attitude in the process and render awards more quickly and efficiently. She also encouraged companies to develop in-house arbitration teams, able to grasp the stakes of investor-State litigation and to consider Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) as a serious alternative to arbitration.

Sophie Nappert, however, pointed out that we had to stop thinking about investment arbitration as a quick dispute resolution system. According to her, in disputes with so many domestic public interests at stake and so many outside actors involved, it was impossible for arbitral tribunal to deliver a short and technical award. Arbitrators thus felt compelled to elaborate lengthily on the legal grounds of the decision, in a way that will make the decision justified and satisfy the stakeholders and public opinion.

Leidylin Contreras mentioned the impression of abuse of the bilateral investment treaty system by investors, the disproportionate damages decided against developing countries that see their public policies and regulatory capacity challenged. She also emphasized the problem of inconsistent arbitration decisions stemming from diverging interpretations by arbitral panels working with the same treaty provisions and the lack of predictability the panel process entails.

Regulation and Accountability

According to Sophie Nappert, arbitration is now “out of the closet”; it is making front-page news and is now under the scrutiny of the international community. But there are many weeds in the investment arbitration garden…NGOs, academics, citizens are asking for increased accountability and transparency; namely, for the publication of awards, for the identity of the arbitrators, and information concerning the appointing process. What has been done to acknowledge these demands? Not much according to Sophie Nappert, who regretted that arbitral institutions have not taken the criticism seriously enough to take a collective stance on the matter. Nappert urged arbitral institutions to take a firmer role in the quality control of the arbitral product.

According to Anna Joubin-Bret, a possible solution lies in the development of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). According to her, statistics show that 39% of ICSID cases are settled before the parties go to arbitration, demonstrating that ADR procedures are not so uncommon. “We often forget that arbitration is a sub-section of ADR.”

Contreras nuanced this point by explaining the difficulty for government officials to settle disputes using ADR because of the inevitable suspicion of corruption that will weigh on them in addition with the popular opprobrium that would necessarily stain the officials who accept to compromise rather than litigate. Very few politicians are eager to bear such a political cost.

The panelists all agreed that a good step forward would be to create a specific set of rules for investor-State mediation to be included in the relevant investment protection instrument. While there are specific rules on conciliation in the ICSID Convention, more cane be done.

The Seeds of Change

It finally appears that when it comes to discussing investment arbitration reforms, investors and States often share a common interest in having an efficient dispute resolution system. In the end, the ultimate goal for both is to put an end to a dispute and have the investor stay in the country and pursue his investment. Even though we often read that those interests as clashing, investors and States are both users of the investment arbitration system and have everything to win from seeing it improved.

The choice of launching a conference attended by young lawyers with this controversial and touchy subject matter is probably not a random choice by the ICC organizational committee. It underscores that a reform is of crucial importance to the perpetuation of investment arbitration and that there are no better people to achieve this than the upcoming generation of arbitrators.

Yael Halbron is a graduate from Sciences Po and an LL.M Candidate at Duke University School of Law.

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[1] This blog is based on the personal notes of the author; it does not reflect the opinion of the co-organizers, moderators or panelists of the ICC Global YAF event.

NYU’s Center for Transnational Litigation, Arbitration and Commercial Law will host a conference on “Forum Shopping in the International Commercial Arbitration Context”

The list of speakers include Prof. George A. Bermann, Mr. Christopher Boog, Prof. Jack Coe, Jr., Prof. Filip De Ly, Mr. Domenico Di Pietro, Mr. John Fellas, Prof. Franco Ferrari, Mr. Brian King, Mr. Alexander Layton, Mr. Pedro Martinez-Fraga, Prof. Loukas Mistelis, Prof. Peter B. Rutledge, Prof. Maxi Scherer, Prof. Linda Silberman, Mr. Aaron Simowitz, Mr. Robert H. Smit.

Thursday, Feb. 28th,  4-7:00pm

Friday, March 1st, 9:30am-6:30pm

Saturday, March 2nd, 9:15am-12:45pm

245 Sullivan St., Furman Hall, Pollack Room, 10012 NY.

Free registration

Since space is limited, RSVP to Ms. Cassy Rodriguez at  cassy.rodriguez@nyu.edu

For more information, please refer to program brochure

Forum Shopping in The International Commercial Arbitration Context Program Brochure

On February 11th, the Center – in collaboration with The American Society of International Law – will host a panel discussion on the role of the Permanent Court of Arbitration today. The event will feature keynote remarks by PCA Secretary General Hugo H. Siblesz and a distinguished panel of experts, Michael Reisman, Yale Law School and Garth Schofield, Permanent Court of Arbitration. This gathering will commemorate the launch of ASIL’s new Howard M. Holtzmann Research Center for the Study of International Arbitration and Conciliation and will be moderated by Donald Donovan, and Debevoise & Plimpton.

Monday, February 11, 2013
New York University School of Law – Furman Hall – Room 210
245 Sullivan Street New York, NY
6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

Free registration

For more information and to register, visit
www.asil.org/nyevent