A New Era of Investor-State Arbitration - World Arbitration and Mediation Review, Vol. 9 No. 4
Donald Francis Donovan is co-head of the international disputes group at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP. He has argued international law, arbitration law, commercial law, and other issues before the ICJ, the Arbitral Tribunal established by the 1930 Hague Agreement, and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia; the US Supreme Court, the US Courts of Appeals for the Second, Third, Fourth, Ninth, and District of Columbia Circuits, and other federal and state courts throughout the US; and arbitration tribunals sitting around the world, in a wide range of economic sectors, in commercial and investor-state disputes. Based on surveys of other practitioners, Chambers Global 2015 recently ranked him in the top tier of both international arbitration practitioners and public international lawyers, and he has been described as “one of the world’s leading practitioners in both investment treaty and commercial arbitration,” as “one of the best advocates that you will ever see,” and as an “arbitration superstar.” He also regularly sits as arbitrator in both commercial and investor-state cases. Mr. Donovan recently completed a term as President of the American Society of International Law. He serves as a Member of the US Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on International Law; a Member of the Advisory Committees of the American Law Institute for the Restatement of the Law Fourth – The Foreign Relations Law of the U.S. and for the Restatement of the Law Third – The U.S. Law of International Commercial Arbitration; a Member and Honorary Vice-President of the International Council for Commercial Arbitration (ICCA); and as a Member of the Board of Human Rights First and Chair of its Litigation Committee. He served from 2000-2005 as Chair of the ITA. Mr. Donovan teaches International Arbitration and International Investment Law and Arbitration at New York University School of Law, and this summer he will teach the general course on investor-state arbitration at the Academy of International Arbitration in Paris. Before joining Debevoise, Mr. Donovan served as law clerk to Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the US Supreme Court and as legal assistant to Judge Howard M. Holtzmann of the Iran-US Claims Tribunal.
Originally From World Arbitration and Mediation Review (WAMR)
A New Era of Investor-State Arbitration?
Donald Francis Donovan
I. Introduction
Doak Bishop: As many of you know there have been many recent developments in the field of investment arbitration, which are continuing. There is a substantial critique of the system going on now by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and others as being unfair to states; partly because of arbitrator selection, transparency issues, attacks on government regulations, and other issues. There are negotiations ongoing between the EU and the US over the Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership (TTIP) Treaty, but there is substantial resistance there to the inclusion of an arbitration clause or a dispute resolution clause. There may be similar issues in the negotiation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Treaty (TPP) which is also going on. Whatever the resolution of those issues, they will substantially affect, if not change, the nature of investment arbitration and that is part of the topic of today’s speech by Donald Donovan entitled, “A New Era of Investor-State Arbitration?”
Donald Donovan is undoubtedly one of the world’s leading lawyers in international arbitration. He is a partner and co-head of the International Disputes Group at Debevoise & Plimpton and is ranked in the first tier of international arbitration lawyers in the world. He is a former president of the American Society of International Law, an honorary Vice President of ICCA, and a member of the advisory committees of the ALI Restatements of US Law on Foreign Relations and International Commercial Arbitration. He argued before the ICJ in the “Avena Case” [Mexico v. the United States of America] concerning the death penalty in the context of consular treaty rights and the related cases before the US Supreme Court. He has argued numerous international arbitration cases and acted as an arbitrator in both commercial and investment arbitrations. But perhaps Mr. Donovan is best known as being the fifth chair of the ITA back in 2000-2005 and we very much appreciate all the contributions Mr. Donovan has made to the ITA over the years. And with that, please welcome Donald Donovan.