Originally from Investment Treaty Arbitration and International Law - Volume 13

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MR. KABIR DUGGAL: It is my distinctive honor and privilege to introduce somebody who needs no introduction.  When you’re thinking about arbitration in the United States or perhaps in the world, one of the names that you’re thinking about is our keynote speaker for today, Professor George Bermann.  Please Google him.  He has probably the most fascinating bio, and if I’m going to summarize all the accomplishments, we’re going to be here until tomorrow.  So, I’m just going to give a very high level summary of some of the key points.

Professor Bermann holds not one but two chairs at Columbia.  I think you are the only professor who has two chairs.  He is the Jean Monnet Professor of EU Law, and the Walter Gellhorn Guiding Professor of Law.  He is the Editor in Chief of the American Review of International Arbitration.  He is my boss in that journal. Very honest comment: Best journal in the world. Everybody should write for it.

He is the founder and Director of the Centre of International and Commercial International Arbitration, the CICIA, at Columbia.

In addition, and this is no mean task, he is the Chief Reporter for the American Law Institute’s restatement of U.S. Law of International Commercial Arbitration and Investment Arbitration.

He has taught all over the world.  He has published in all the journals, in all leading journals. Some of his students are actually in this room, which is, I think, a tribute to his legacy. A true Renaissance scholar, someone who teaches, writes, mentors, sits as an expert, sits as an arbitrator.

Professor Bermann.
(Applause.)

MR. GEORGE BERMANN: Thank you, Kabir, for your hyperbolic introduction. It wasn’t as hyperbolic as I feared, having heard you introduce me in the past, so I appreciate that you toned it down a bit.

You might call what I’m going to deliver today a keynote, but actually it builds so rather remarkably, I think, on this morning’s proceedings here, which was unintentional on my part, and you’ll know very soon why I say that. I call it the “Saga of ICSID Article 54.”