Originally from Pro-Arbitration Revisited: A Tribute to Professor George Bermann from his Students Over the Years

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We are living through an inflection point. Right now, the ground of international law is shaking. We are struggling to gain our balance and the international order continues to rumble beneath us.

What does investment protection mean in a world where economic sanctions are the primary non-kinetic tool of restraining illegal actions by a state? What does it mean to protect investment in that context?  

How do we calibrate orthodox customary international law conceptions of the minimum standard of treatment or expropriation when economics are more political than ever?  

I am reminded of an article written by another of Columbia’s greatest professors, Oscar Schachter. Professor Schacter wrote an article in 1977 where he posited, famously, that there is “an invisible college of international lawyers.” This college of lawyers is charged with, and responsible for, maintenance of international law—peace, human rights, liberty. Watchers on the wall, protecting the global order.  Unbound by national allegiance—fidelity first and foremost to propping up and stitching together a system of law on which our lives and freedom depend.