The Present and Future of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) Reform

Global Network

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Agenda

 

About this event

The system of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) has aroused much controversy and backlash in recent years. Efforts for reform have been made by European Union, the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), and other stakeholders to respond to the public criticism. What are the points of friction that trigger public criticism against ISDS? What is the status of the reform options currently being discussed? What are the prospects of ISDS reform?

This panel explores the ongoing efforts of ISDS reform from different institutions (including ICSID, UNCITRAL Working Group III on ISDS Reform) and probes public opinion on ISDS through behavioural experiments.

Moderator: 

Dr Lu Wang 

Dr Lu Wang is a Lecturer at UNSW Law & Justice and a member of the China International Business and Economic Law (CIBEL) Centre. Her primary area of research interest is international and comparative economic law, with a particular focus on international investment law, international arbitration, State-owned enterprises (SOEs) and Chinese regulation of foreign trade and investment. She has published on cutting-edge issues in international economic law with leading international academic publishers and served as co-guest editor to the ICSID Review (published by Oxford University Press) Special Focus Issue on SOE and International Investment Law. Before joining UNSW Law & Justice, Lu worked as legal intern at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) of the World Bank Group and the Department of Treaty and Law of MOFCOM. She was also a Visiting Fellow at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law at the University of Cambridge. Currently, Lu serves as an Affiliated Expert of the Asia-Pacific FDI Network and works closely with international organisations and key actors involved in the field of foreign direct investment (FDI). She holds two PhDs from the University of Liverpool in the UK and Xi’an Jiaotong University in China.

Speakers:

Ms Meg Kinnear 

Ms Meg Kinnear is the Secretary-General of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). Ms. Kinnear joined ICSID in June 2009. She worked as Senior General Counsel (2006-2009) and Director General of the Trade Law Bureau of Canada (1999- 2006). Prior to this, Ms. Kinnear also worked as the Executive Assistant to the Deputy Minister of Justice of Canada (1996 -1999) and Counsel at the Civil Litigation Section of the Canadian Department of Justice (1984-1996). Ms. Kinnear has frequently spoken on and published with respect to international investment law and procedure, including as a co-author of Investment Disputes under NAFTA (Kluwer Law Publications, June 2006; updated editions released January 2008 and June 2009). Ms. Kinnear holds degrees from the University of Virginia (LL.M.) and McGill University (LL.B.). She is admitted to the Bar of the Law Society of Upper Canada (Ontario) and the District of Columbia Bar. She speaks English and French.

Professor Chiara Giorgetti 

Professor Chiara Giorgetti teaches and writes in the areas of public international law, international arbitration, international courts ad tribunals. She has authored over a dozen publications on these topics, including several authored and edited books. She has written in the Colombia Journal of Transnational Law, the University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law, the Georgetown Journal of International Law and in the American Journal of International Law. Professor Giorgetti served as a member of the Executive Council and Executive Committee of the American Society of International Law and co-chaired the ASIL Annual Meeting. She is Vice-President of the American Branch of the International Law Association, immediate-past Chair of the Academic Council of the Institute for Transnational Arbitration and a member of the Academic Forum on ISDS. Prior to joining the Richmond Law faculty in 2012, Professor Giorgetti practiced international arbitration in Washington, D.C., and Geneva, Switzerland, and worked extensively with the United Nations in New York and Somalia. She also served as counsel in several inter-states disputes. Professor Giorgetti clerked at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Dr Maria Laura Marceddu 

Dr Maria Laura Marceddu specialises in international investment law. Her research is centred mainly on the European investment law and policy, and its repercussions on the international regime of foreign investment. She earns her PhD from King’s College London, where she has also been appointed as a visiting lecturer in international investment law, and as a fellow at the Centre of European Law. Prior to this, she worked as a teaching fellow at the University of Edinburgh (Law School), and is a fellow at the Edinburgh Centre for International and Global Law (ECIGL). She serves as a treasurer in the Society of International Economic Law, where she has been appointed as the chair of the SIEL Online Conversations. 

Commentator:

Associate Professor Kun Fan

Associate Professor Kun Fan, PhD summa cum laude (University of Geneva), LLM (NYU) is an award-winning scholar in the area of international arbitration, mediation and comparative legal studies. She is author of the book Arbitration in China: A Legal and Cultural Analysis(Hart Publishing) and has published extensively on cutting-edge issues in a variety of leading international journals. She was named Norton Rose Fulbright Faculty Scholar in Arbitration & Commercial Law in 2017 and received numerous awards in recognition of her academic contribution. She also has extensive experience in ADR practice, and has worked as counsel, legal expert, secretary for the arbitration tribunal, arbitrator and domain names panelist in a number of international arbitrations and domain name disputes, and has overseen over a hundred arbitrations administered by the ICC International Court of Arbitration when she worked as a Deputy Counsel. She is called to the New York Bar, an Academic Council Member of the Institute of Transnational Arbitration, a Domain Names Panelist of the HKIAC and the ADNDRC, a Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, an Accredited Mediator of the HKMAAL, and an Arbitrator of a number of arbitration institutions.