I. INTRODUCTION

 

Having already made an attempt at the 2013 year in review,

I will try to get the 2014 review right. I admit that I do feel

somewhat in the position of my college roommate who went to

medical school and several years later sent me a letter (yes, preemail

age) informing me that he was doing emergency room

medicine and planned to keep doing it until he got it right.

 

 

There is no need for quite such concern today, as what you are

about to hear is most likely incapable of killing you. In addition,

the ITA has a two-term limit on presenting the year in review, or

they certainly will have after today. Consequently, 2015 is

already looking good, but lame duck status does not deter me. My

selection and organizing principles for 2014 are personal, but

nonetheless I am going to disclose them now along with my

review themes.

 

 

This might give you the impression that my themes were

imposed on the evidence rather than emerging from it, and I am

going to have to accept that risk. However, looking around this

room, I can see that a number of you have personal experience of

taking the very same risk.

 

 

My methodology for selecting and organizing this review is as

follows. I thought it would be fitting to divide the subject matter

into two general categories: the first being awards and decisions

and the second being the potential effects of the political economy

on energy arbitration. Under the awards and decisions category, I

have paid particular attention to a few subsets, above all, cases

that may contribute to the development of international

arbitration law and international law. As you will shortly find out,

there are quite a few such cases, which may not be entirely

positive for energy arbitration. After all, while an abundance of
shipping cases has done much to shape commercial arbitration