Public International Law Discussion Group (Part II)
Oxford University
54 episodes
9 months ago
What explains the rise of investor-state arbitration? To the extent that investor-state arbitration had founding fathers, what were their motivations, what constraints did they have, what was their thinking? Using documents from the American, British, German, and Swiss archives, this talk will revisit three moments: the initial vision for a standalone arbitration convention (the ICSID Convention), European governments’ decisions to add consent to arbitration into their investment treaties, and America’s late embrace of investor-state arbitration. Revisiting these moments with internal documents suggests a need to rethink conventional narratives about who and what drove the development of investor-state arbitration.
Taylor St John is Lecturer in International Relations at the University of St Andrews. She researches the history and politics of investment law. Her monograph, The Rise of Investor-State Arbitration: Politics, Law, and Unintended Consequences, was published by Oxford University Press in 2018. She is currently researching ISDS reform processes, and co-authors the EJIL Talk! blogs on the UNCITRAL negotiations with Professor Anthea Roberts. She was previously Postdoctoral Research Fellow, PluriCourts, University of Oslo and before that, Fellow in International Political Economy, London School of Economics. She received a DPhil and MSc from the University of Oxford. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/
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What explains the rise of investor-state arbitration? To the extent that investor-state arbitration had founding fathers, what were their motivations, what constraints did they have, what was their thinking? Using documents from the American, British, German, and Swiss archives, this talk will revisit three moments: the initial vision for a standalone arbitration convention (the ICSID Convention), European governments’ decisions to add consent to arbitration into their investment treaties, and America’s late embrace of investor-state arbitration. Revisiting these moments with internal documents suggests a need to rethink conventional narratives about who and what drove the development of investor-state arbitration.
Taylor St John is Lecturer in International Relations at the University of St Andrews. She researches the history and politics of investment law. Her monograph, The Rise of Investor-State Arbitration: Politics, Law, and Unintended Consequences, was published by Oxford University Press in 2018. She is currently researching ISDS reform processes, and co-authors the EJIL Talk! blogs on the UNCITRAL negotiations with Professor Anthea Roberts. She was previously Postdoctoral Research Fellow, PluriCourts, University of Oslo and before that, Fellow in International Political Economy, London School of Economics. She received a DPhil and MSc from the University of Oxford. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/
Public International Law Discussion Group (Part II)
46 minutes
7 years ago
Unmaking the ocean
This talk will discuss elements of a research project that explores the evolution of the law of the sea over the course of the 20th century It will focus on the emergence of the seabed as an area of political, economic and technological interest, and trace its subjection to national and international regimes. Calling attention to the legally constructed imaginary of the seabed as a space distinct from the above water, the talk will re-examine views of both the ocean and the law, which are commonly held, and presented as natural and therefore necessary. Suggesting instead a greater focus on the contingencies and false contingencies informing the development of the law, the talk will join a small but growing literature on the unnatural history of the sea.
About the Speaker:
Surabhi Ranganathan is a University Lecturer in Law and a Fellow of King's College at the University of Cambridge.
She is also a fellow of the Lauterpacht Centre and the author of Strategically Created Treaty Conflicts and the Politics of International Law (CUP 2014). With an interest in the history of international law, natural resources and distribution, her current work focuses on the law of the sea and global commons.
Public International Law Discussion Group (Part II)
What explains the rise of investor-state arbitration? To the extent that investor-state arbitration had founding fathers, what were their motivations, what constraints did they have, what was their thinking? Using documents from the American, British, German, and Swiss archives, this talk will revisit three moments: the initial vision for a standalone arbitration convention (the ICSID Convention), European governments’ decisions to add consent to arbitration into their investment treaties, and America’s late embrace of investor-state arbitration. Revisiting these moments with internal documents suggests a need to rethink conventional narratives about who and what drove the development of investor-state arbitration.
Taylor St John is Lecturer in International Relations at the University of St Andrews. She researches the history and politics of investment law. Her monograph, The Rise of Investor-State Arbitration: Politics, Law, and Unintended Consequences, was published by Oxford University Press in 2018. She is currently researching ISDS reform processes, and co-authors the EJIL Talk! blogs on the UNCITRAL negotiations with Professor Anthea Roberts. She was previously Postdoctoral Research Fellow, PluriCourts, University of Oslo and before that, Fellow in International Political Economy, London School of Economics. She received a DPhil and MSc from the University of Oxford. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/
