Originally from Reflections on International Arbitration - Essays in Honour of Professor George Bermann

Preview Page

INTRODUCTION

Professor George Bermann and I first “met” in an unusual setting. He was a member of an appointment committee for a job for which I applied early in my academic career in his second, adopted country. It was a chance encounter, but one that led to a relationship of greater duration. Like others represented in this volume, I have been lucky to be able to count on his wise counsel, to learn from his deep and wide-ranging scholarship on international arbitration and European Union Law, and to have the chance to work with several of his former students and research assistants at Columbia Law School. 

This article focuses on fragmentation within international investment law. The problem of fragmentation acquires real significance when investor-State tribunals exceed the scope of their jurisdiction, when they reach conflicting outcomes on the merits of similar disputes, or when the relevant actors perceive them to do so.