Originally from Investment Treaty Arbitration and International Law - Volume 11

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What does the future promise after the Philip Morris cases against Uruguay and Australia? After presenting their views on these cases, our authors adopt contrary positions as to the proper scope of a defined “investment” in current treaties and what we should look for in future treaties such as TPP and TTIP.

MR. LAIRD:  Well, seeing as you’ve gone all very quiet and look very ready, we’ll start.

I’d like to introduce myself.  My name is Ian Laird.  I am Co Chair of this Annual Conference, the Investment Treaty Arbitration Conference, put on by Juris Conferences, LLC.  This is our 11th Annual Conference, and the theme of this year’s conference is “Technology, IP, and Investor State Arbitration.”

I wanted to start off with some administrative matters this morning.  The first and the foremost is to thank our organizers, Juris Conferences.  Michael Kitzen and Candice Dubinsky, whose names you’ve probably seen on the various materials and e mails flying around, have been partnering with us for the last 11 years to put on this conference.  And, of course, every year they do a fantastic job.

Candice, for the first time, was unable to make it.  She’s really the motor behind this conference.  She had an elbow injury, which kept her back in New York, so our best wishes are with Candice to get better.  And there is Mike over in the corner.  Thank you, Mike, for once again organizing our conference.

I wanted to also, as part of my introductory remarks, thank my Co Chairs.  We have Professor Frederick Sourgens or, as Americans would say, “SOR GUNS,” Professor at Washburn Law School in Kansas – full professor.  He just received his tenure, so congratulations, Freddie.

And our second Co Chair, Dr. Borzu Sabahi, who is a partner at Curtis, Mallet Prevost here in Washington, D.C.  Dr. Sabahi is a long time participant in this conference.  He reminds me that he was an author in our very first conference 11 years ago.  So, for our authors in the room, you can see there is some hope.  Someday, you can be the Chair of this august conference.

And my other partner in crime, the founder of our conference, Dr. Todd Weiler, who is standing next to me.  Todd created this conference 11 years ago on the idea that our young practitioners, our young academics – those who want to get involved in our very interesting field – needed a bit of a boost, a bit of access to the world of conferences and networking that is very typical in the arbitration and legal world, and so we created this structure in which each of the panels has two authors who have assigned the positions.  So, you’ll hear that all over the course of the day.