Welcome to the introductory page for the following module: Emerging Issues in Investment Law: International Considerations for Advising Clients
This module lasts approximately 5 hours.
This course looks at different ways to conceptualise international investment with regard to the international regulatory environment, arbitration, and principles at play in both traditional and emerging types of investment such as those concerned with sustainable development. It will investigate the interplay between human rights and conflict on one hand and investment and economic activities on the other hand, particularly with regard to the implications of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. These issues are relevant to both developing and developed country parties engaged in global economic activity and exchange, and in particular parties engaged in investment in conflict territories and on environmental issues.
The course will be divided as follows:
- Introduction (by Dr Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger)
- Recent Issues in international investment arbitration (by Mr Cameron Miles)
This section will cover key aspects of the international investment treaty system and regulation governing investment. It will deal with the jurisprudence of treaty shopping, explore what investor-state arbitration means in practice by reference to case law, and consider aspects of foreign direct investment. - Crimea and issues of nationhood and force in international law (by Dr Thomas D. Grant)
This section will cover legal aspects of the recent annexation of Crimea by Russia, considering how UN organs, States, as well as business actors have responded to the conflict. It will touch on issues of regional instability, use of force, functioning of treaties in the context of conflict, and the ways in which non-recognition and sanctions can serve useful purposes in international law. - Sustainable development and international investment law (by Dr Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger)
This section will consider the extent to which principles of sustainable development are integrated into and relevant to existing international law on investment, particularly different treaty bodies.
Primary Instructors
Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger
Professor Dr Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger, DPhil (Oxon) MEM (Yale) BCL and LLB (McGill), BA Hons, Full Professor of Law, University of Waterloo, Fellow at C-EENRG and LCIL, University of Cambridge, International Advisor, IC3, is a distinguished professor, scholar and expert jurist in law and governance on sustainable development.
She serves as Senior Director of the CISDL in a pro bono academic capacity, where she mentors CISDL lawyers and fellows, and guides new international legal scholarship and education. She is also a Full Professor of Law (part-time) at the University of Waterloo and Fellow of the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Canada; and Fellow and Advisor of the Centre for Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Governance (C-EENRG) and Affiliated Fellow of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law (LCIL) in the University of Cambridge. Her current research focuses on law and governance regimes related to climate change; natural resources and biodiversity management; investment, trade and the green economy; among other emerging sustainable development challenges. She received the 2016 international Justitia Regnorum Fundamentum Award for her leadership on behalf of future generations, among other international awards and honours.
Professor Cordonier Segger has edited/authored 20 books and 120+ papers in five languages, edits the Cambridge University Press Implementing Treaties on Sustainable Development Series, and serves on the Editorial Boards of 6 law journals. As an expert jurist, she is active in international sustainable development debates. She advises United Nations treaty negotiations and organizations, serving as Executive Secretary of the Climate Law and Governance Initiative in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Chair of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Biodiversity Law & Governance Initiative. She is Rapporteur for the International Law Association’s Committee on Sustainable Resources Management; Chair of the World Bank Law Justice and Development’s Climate Law Community of Practice; and member of various Boards of Directors and Foundations.
Cameron Miles
Dr. Cameron Miles, Ph.D. (Cambridge), LL.M. (Cambridge), LL.B. (Monash), B.A. (Monash), is a practicing lawyer in London. Dr. Miles has substantial experience with all areas of public international law, with a particular expertise in the law and practice of international courts and tribunals, state responsibility, recognition of states and governments, state and diplomatic immunity and international investment law. He has been involved in proceedings before the International Court of Justice, the Permanent Court of Arbitration and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes.
Thomas D. Grant
Dr. Thomas D. Grant is a Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge and senior associate of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law.
Dr Grant has served as legal advisor to governments, international organizations, corporate clients, and two U.S. presidential election campaigns. For over ten years at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law at the University of Cambridge, he served as senior associate to Prof. James Crawford (former member, International Law Commission, current nominee to the International Court of Justice), in which capacity he assisted in a wide range of international law matters. Cases on which Dr Grant has worked include both contentious and advisory proceedings before the International Court of Justice, maritime disputes under Annex VII of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, investment arbitrations under ICSID rules, commercial arbitrations under ICC rules, maritime delimitation negotiations, continental shelf claims, international claims settlement processes, hydrocarbon production sharing agreements under treaty law and special constitutional settlements, international water rights disputes, and litigation in U.S. federal court arising out of the Alien Tort Claims Act. He is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia, New York, Massachusetts, and the U.S. Supreme Court and is available for consultations and engagements as advocate and advisor.
Dr Grant’s teaching area is international law, with a focus on international dispute settlement. He has lectured the international law paper at Cambridge (Part Ib) and supervised graduate students in law and international relations at Cambridge and Oxford.