Advisors
Julie Bédard
Julie Bédard is head of Skadden’s International Litigation and Arbitration Group for the Americas. Fluent in French, Spanish and Portuguese, Ms. Bédard practices in four languages in complex disputes and investigations. She is a prior member of Skadden’s Policy Committee, the firm’s governing body. Trained in both civil and common law, Ms. Bédard has a doctorate in conflicts of antitrust and securities regulation and represents clients in litigation, arbitration, and regulatory proceedings throughout the world, advising on disputes, regulatory enforcement, governing law, jurisdiction, arbitration agreements, force majeure, and changed circumstances, as well as extraterritoriality and international judgment enforcement.
George M. Bermann
George A. Bermann is Walter Gellhorn Professor of Law and Jean Monnet Professor in European Union Law at Columbia Law School, where he also serves as director of the Center for International Commercial & Investment Arbitration. He is an affiliated faculty member of the School of Law of Sciences Po in Paris and the MIDS Masters Program in International Dispute Settlement in Geneva. For more than four decades, Professor Bermann has been an active international arbitrator in commercial and investment disputes. He was the chief reporter for the American Law Institute (ALI) for its Restatement of the Law, The U.S. Law of International Commercial and Investor-State Arbitration, a 12-year project that was completed in 2019. He is also co-author of the UNCITRAL Guide to the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, chair of the Global Advisory Board of the New York International Arbitration Center (NYIAC), co-editor in chief of the American Review of International Arbitration, and founding member of the governing body of the ICC Court of Arbitration and a member of its standing committee.
Pamela K. Bookman
Pamela K. Bookman (@pamelabookman) is an Associate Professor of Law at Fordham University School of Law, where she teaches Civil Procedure, Contracts, and International Litigation and Arbitration. She is a member of several associations focused on transnational litigation, including the New York State Bar Association Task Force to Update Report on New York Law in International Matters and the New York City Bar Association’s Committee on International Commercial Dispute Resolution. Prior to entering academia, Professor Bookman was a Counsel in the New York office of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP, where she represented clients in complex commercial business disputes with a focus on transnational litigation and maintained an active pro bono practice. Following law school, Professor Bookman clerked for Judge Robert D. Sack of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, President Rosalyn Higgins and Judge Thomas Buergenthal of the International Court of Justice, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court. Professor Bookman’s scholarship on transnational litigation has appeared or is forthcoming in the Stanford Law Review, the American Journal of International Law, the Yale Journal of International Law, and other leading law journals. Professor Bookman received her B.A. in Russian Literature from Yale University and her J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, where she served as an Articles Editor on the Virginia Law Review and received the Rosenbloom Award for enhancing the academic experience of her fellow students.
Gary Born
Gary Born is Chair of the International Arbitration Practice Group at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP and one of the world’s pre-eminent authorities on international commercial arbitration and international litigation. He has served as counsel in over 675 arbitrations, including several of the largest arbitrations in ICC and ad hoc history, and has sat as arbitrator in more than 250 institutional and ad hoc arbitrations. Mr. Born has published a number of leading works on international arbitration, international litigation, and other forms of dispute resolution, including International Commercial Arbitration (Third Edition, Kluwer 2020). He is an Honorary Professor of Law at the University of St Gallen, Switzerland, and teaches regularly at law schools in Europe, Asia and North and South America. Mr. Born is a former President of the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) Court of Arbitration, a member of the International Advisory Board of the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (HKIAC), a member of the International Arbitration Committee of the Korean Commercial Arbitration Board (KCAB), a member of the Global Advisory Board of the New York International Arbitration Center (NYIAC), and a member of the Jerusalem Arbitration Center’s Court of Arbitration.
Curtis A. Bradley
Curtis A. Bradley (@curtisabradley) is the Allen M. Singer Professor at the University of Chicago Law School. He is the author, among other things, of International Law in the U.S. Legal System (3d ed. 2020), and Foreign Relations Law: Cases and Materials (7th ed. 2020) (with Ashley Deeks and Jack Goldsmith), as well as numerous law review articles. In 2004, Professor Bradley served as Counselor on International Law in the Legal Adviser’s Office of the U.S. State Department, and he is currently a member of the State Department’s Advisory Committee on International Law. From 2012-18, he served as a Reporter for the Restatement (Fourth) of Foreign Relations Law, and from 2018-22, he served as co-Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of International Law.
Ronald A. Brand
Ronald A. Brand is the Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg University Professor of Law, John E. Murray Faculty Scholar, and the founding Director of the Center for International Legal Education (CILE) at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He regularly teaches courses in international business transactions, international arbitration and litigation, and matters of private international law. In 2011, Professor Brand delivered a special course on private international law at the Hague Academy of International Law. He is a former Fulbright Scholar in Belgium, and a former Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of Bologna. He has received the ABA Section on International Law’s Leonard A. Theberge Award in Private International Law, the University of Pittsburgh’s Distinguished Faculty Award for International Achievement, and a Doctor Iuris Honoris Causa from the University of Augsburg. Professor Brand was a member of the U.S. Delegation to the Special Commissions and Diplomatic Conferences of The Hague Conference on Private International Law that concluded the 2005 Convention on Choice of Court Agreements and the 2019 Hague Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters. Professor Brand now serves as a U.S. representative to the Working Group considering a Convention on Parallel Proceedings. He regularly works with the U.S. Commerce Department Commercial Law Development Program (CLDP) to train students in more than 30 countries in the Middle East, the Balkans, and Asia, for the Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot Competition.
Hannah Buxbaum
Hannah Buxbaum is Professor of Law and the John E. Schiller Chair at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law and currently serves as Indiana University’s Vice President for International Affairs. Her research on private international law and jurisdiction focuses on transnational economic regulation. She is a member of the American Law Institute, the International Academy of Comparative Law, and the Advisory Committee on Private International Law for the U.S. Department of State. She currently serves as the U.S. member on the Curatorium of the Hague Academy of International Law.
Cedric Chao
Cedric Chao led Morrison & Foerster’s international litigation and arbitration practice from 1996 to 2013 and was the U.S. head of DLA Piper’s global international arbitration practice from 2013 to 2019. He established Chao ADR, PC in 2019, and sits as an arbitrator and mediator in addition to selectively accepting engagements as counsel or advisor in precedential matters. He has argued 13 times before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, once before the Fifth Circuit, once before the U.S. Supreme Court, and five times before the California State Court of Appeal. Mr. Chao is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (London); a Fellow of Litigation Counsel of America, an invitation-only trial lawyer honorary society; and a Life Member of the American Law Institute (ALI). He was one of 31 Advisors to the ALI’s Restatement of the U.S. Law of International Commercial and Investor-State Arbitration and is the co-author of the mediation chapter in Thomson Reuters’ treatise, Business and Commercial Litigation in Federal Courts (5th ed. 2021). Mr. Chao is a former U.S. member of the ICC Arbitration Commission and is the co-head of the International Advisory Committee of the AAA/ICDR Council. He attended Stanford University and Harvard Law School.
Tai-Heng Cheng
Tai-Heng Cheng (@taihengcheng) is Global Co-Head of Sidley Austin LLP’s International Arbitration and Trade practice and Co-Managing Partner of the firm’s office in Singapore. He has won and collected nine-figure awards for clients both in commercial and investment-treaty arbitrations. Mr. Cheng is ranked as one of the top 10 arbitration practitioners in North and South America under 45 by Who’s Who Legal Mr. Cheng has served as Vice President of the American Society of International Law and is an elected fellow of the College of Commercial Arbitrators, the American Law Institute, and the Foreign Policy Association. Prior to joining Sidley, Mr. Cheng was the chair of the New York international arbitration practice in another global law firm. He was also a tenured professor of international law in the United States. He has a J.S.D. and LL.M. degree from Yale Law School and first-class honors in law from Oxford University.
Donald Earl Childress III
Donald Earl Childress III is a Professor of Law at the Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law. His primary teaching and research interests are transnational litigation and arbitration, with a special emphasis on private international law. In addition to his academic work, Professor Childress has briefed and argued cases as counsel before the International Court of Justice and has consulted or served as an expert in many transnational cases filed in U.S. and non-U.S. courts. He recently served as Counselor on International Law to the Legal Adviser at the U.S. State Department. Professor Childress is a member of the American Law Institute, a member of the Institute for Transnational Arbitration’s Academic Council, a director of the American Society of Comparative Law, and a member of the Advisory Committee on International Law of the U.S. State Department. Professor Childress received his B.A. from the University of Virginia and his J.D. and LLM in International and Comparative Law magna cum laude from the Duke University School of Law. After graduation, he served as a judicial clerk for Judge Paul V. Niemeyer of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Robin Effron
Robin Effron (@binsky18) is a Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School, where she teaches civil procedure, litigation, and international business law courses. Her articles on procedure and federal courts have appeared in many leading law reviews and have been cited by state, federal, and foreign courts. She is a regular presenter and commentator at civil procedure and litigation conferences and symposia, and her work has been selected for presentation at national events such as the AALS Annual Meeting (Civil Procedure Section), the Annual Civil Procedure Workshop, and Vanderbilt Law School’s Branstetter Workshop. Professor Effron is also an author of a widely adopted Civil Procedure casebook. Conversant in German, she spent an academic year in Germany as a fellow in the D.A.A.D. Program for International Lawyers and worked with attorneys in the legal department of a large investment bank to research questions of German and U.S. law. At Brooklyn Law School, she serves as Co-Director for the Dennis J. Block Center for the Study of International Business Law. She is an avid writer, penning op-eds for various publications. Professor Effron also edits the Civil Procedure and Federal Courts Blog for the Law Professors Blog Network.
Brian Egan
Brian Egan is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. Mr. Egan represents and assists clients on a wide range of cross-border legal issues, including national security investment reviews, export controls, U.S. and multilateral economic sanctions and anti-money laundering programs, cross-border litigation and arbitration, international cybersecurity and data privacy matters, and public international law matters. Mr. Egan has served in several positions in the U.S. government. including as the Legal Adviser to the U.S. Department of State from 2016-17; Legal Adviser to the National Security Council and Deputy White House Counsel from 2013-16; and Assistant General Counsel for Enforcement and Intelligence at the U.S. Department of the Treasury from 2012-13. He is a graduate of Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.
Theodore J. Folkman
Ted Folkman (@tedfolkman) practices law in Boston where he is the founder of Folkman LLC. Widely known in the field of international judicial assistance, he is the author of the blog Letters Blogatory, which has been recognized as one of the best law blogs by the ABA, and International Judicial Assistance: Serving Process, Taking Evidence, Enforcing Judgments and Awards (MCLE 2d ed.). Mr. Folkman is the Co-Chair of the International Law Section of the Boston Bar Association and was elected to the American Law Institute in 2018.
Laurence R. Helfer
Laurence R. Helfer is the Harry R. Chadwick, Sr. Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Center for International and Comparative Law at Duke University. He is also a Permanent Visiting Professor at iCourts: The Center of Excellence for International Courts at the University of Copenhagen, which awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2014. He recently completed a four-year term as co-Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of International Law. Professor Helfer has published more than 100 scholarly works, including four coauthored books and two edited volumes. He has lectured widely on his research interests which include international law and institutions, human rights, international and transnational litigation, and treaty design. Professor Helfer’s articles have appeared in leading U.S. law reviews, including the Yale Law Journal, the Columbia Law Review, the California Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, and the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, as well as in numerous peer-reviewed political science and international law journals.
Paul Hoffman
Paul Hoffman is the Director of the Civil Rights Litigation and International Human Rights Litigation Clinics at UC Irvine School of Law. He is also a partner at Schonbrun Seplow Harris Hoffman & Zeldes LLP in Los Angeles. Professor Hoffman has litigated many of the most important international human rights cases in U.S. courts over the last 40 years. He argued Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, and Nestlé USA v. Doe in the U.S. Supreme Court. He is also the former Legal Director of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California and the former Chair of the International Executive Committee of Amnesty International and the former Chair of the Board of Amnesty International USA. He has taught at Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, and USC Law Schools and written extensively on civil rights and human rights issues.
Chimène Keitner
Chimène Keitner (@KeitnerLaw) is Alfred & Hanna Fromm Professor of International Law at UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. Her expertise spans the fields of international law, international civil litigation, national security law, and emerging issues in cyberlaw. She served as Counselor on International Law at the U.S. Department of State and as an Adviser on Sovereign Immunity for the American Law Institute’s Restatement (Fourth) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States. She has also served as a member of the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law and as founding co-chair of the International Law Association’s Study Group on Individual Responsibility in International Law. Professor Keitner holds an A.B. in History & Literature from Harvard, a D.Phil. in International Relations from Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar, and a J.D. from Yale Law School, where she was a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow.
Geoffrey M. Klineberg
Geoffrey M. Klineberg is the Immediate Past President of the D.C. Bar and a member of the law firm of Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel & Frederick, P.L.L.C. He practices primarily in the areas of administrative law and appellate litigation and also advises clients on the applicability of the Rules of Professional Conduct. From 2012 to 2013, Mr. Klineberg served as Counselor on International Law in the State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser, where he provided advice on a wide variety of litigation matters. Mr. Klineberg is a member of the D.C. Court of Appeals Committee on Unauthorized Practice of Law and now chairs the Committee on Grievances of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. From 1993 to 1995, Mr. Klineberg served as Special Assistant to the Deputy Attorney General in the U.S. Department of Justice. Mr. Klineberg has a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Relations magna cum laude from Princeton University and a Masters of Philosophy degree in International Relations with distinction from Balliol College, Oxford University. He graduated from Yale Law School, where he served as an Articles Editor on the Yale Law Journal. Mr. Klineberg served as a law clerk for the Honorable José A. Cabranes of the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut, then for the Honorable Patricia M. Wald of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and then for Associate Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Harold Hongju Koh
Harold Hongju Koh (@haroldhongjukoh) is Sterling Professor of International Law and former Dean (2004-09) at Yale Law School, where he has taught since 1985. A Korean-American, he graduated from Harvard, Magdalen College, Oxford (PPE Marshall Scholar 1977), and Harvard Law School, and has received seventeen honorary degrees and more than thirty awards for his work in human rights and international law. Professor Koh has served under four US presidents, as Senior Advisor (2021) and Legal Adviser to the US Secretary of State (2009-2013) (Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Award), Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (1998-2001), and Attorney-Adviser at the US Department of Justice (1983-1985). He also served in the judicial branch, as a law clerk for Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the US Supreme Court and Judge Malcolm Richard Wilkey of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. He is the author of more than 200 articles and eight books, including Transnational Litigation in United States Courts (2008) and Transnational Business Problems (with Vagts, Dodge, and Buxbaum, multiple editions). He has appeared before US and international courts in transnational litigation cases and testified frequently before the US Congress. A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, he is a member of the Council of the American Law Institute and received the Wolfgang Friedmann Award from Columbia Law School and the Louis B. Sohn Award from the American Bar Association for his lifetime achievements in international law.
Robert Kry
Robert Kry’s practice focuses on trial and appellate litigation. He represents clients before the United States Supreme Court, the federal courts of appeals, and other federal and state courts. His practice covers a broad array of subject matters, including sovereign immunity, arbitration, enforcement of arbitral awards, constitutional law, business litigation, securities fraud, and intellectual property. Mr. Kry is a founding partner of MoloLamken, which he joined after several years in the Supreme Court and appeals practice of another prominent firm. Before that, Mr. Kry served as a law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia of the United States Supreme Court and to Judge Alex Kozinski of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Legal 500 describes Mr. Kry as a “great writer” and an “incredibly quick and deep thinker” with an “impressive command of the law.” Benchmark Litigation calls him a Litigation Star and notes his “steady ascent in profile.” Chambers says he “has a mind like a supercomputer” and “knows everything there is to know about the recognition of foreign judgments and awards.” Lawdragon named him one of the 500 Leading Lawyers in America. He has been featured in prestigious publications including the New York Times and the National Law Journal.
Vincent Levy
Vincent Levy is a partner at Holwell Shuster & Goldberg, where he represents corporate and individual clients in trial and appellate courts, as well as arbitration proceedings, frequently in disputes involving foreign parties, foreign conduct, or foreign parallel proceedings. He has litigated novel issues of transnational litigation, including under federal common law, Section 1782, and the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (both on behalf of and against foreign states). Mr. Levy has represented parties in international arbitration proceedings seated outside the United States, as well as litigation related to international arbitrations. He maintains an active amicus practice, having authored briefs in the federal courts of appeals and the Supreme Court as counsel of record for diverse institutions (such as the Institute of International Bankers and the UNHCR) and individuals (including leading academics and members of Congress). Vincent received his law degree from Columbia Law School, where he served as editor in chief of the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law and received the John Ordronaux Prize for the highest grade-point average. Following law school, he served as a law clerk to then-Chief Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg of the D.C. Circuit, and to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Supreme Court.
Ralf Michaels
Ralf Michaels (@michaelsralf) is Director at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg, Germany, Chair in Global Law at Queen Mary University in London, and Professor of Law at Hamburg University. Until 2019, he was the Arthur Larson Professor at Duke University School of Law. He holds an LL.M. from Cambridge University and a PhD in Law from Passau University. Professor Michaels is a widely published scholar of private international law, comparative law, and legal theory. His current research focuses on decolonial comparative law, regulatory conflicts, and theoretical foundations of private international law. He is a member of the Academia Europaea, the American Law Institute, and the Comparative Law Associations of the United States, Germany, and France.
Sean D. Murphy
Sean D. Murphy is the Manatt/Ahn Professor of International Law at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Since 2012, he has been a Member of the U.N. International Law Commission which appointed him as Special Rapporteur for Crimes against Humanity. From 1987 to 1998, he served in the U.S. Department of State Office of the Legal Adviser working inter alia on matters relating to international dispute settlement, foreign investment, the law of the sea, and international humanitarian law. Since entering academia, Professor Murphy has served as counsel, arbitrator or ad hoc judge at the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, ICSID, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, and the International Criminal Court. As counsel, he has represented numerous governments, such as Armenia, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kosovo, Northern Macedonia, Suriname, Uganda, and the United States. Professor Murphy has published numerous books and articles on international law, including Principles of International Law (3d ed. 2018), his Hague Academy of International Law lectures on International Law Relating to Islands (2016), and Litigating War: Arbitration of Civil Injury by the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission (2013) (with Snider and Kidane). Professor Murphy served for a decade on the Board of Editors of the American Journal of International Law and is a former President of the American Society of International Law.
Patrick W. Pearsall
Patrick W. Pearsall (@pwpearsall) is a partner at Allen & Overy LLP in Washington D.C. He has extensive experience representing parties in international disputes and providing strategic advice on asset protection, global investment, and commercial contracts. He served in the U.S. State Department from 2009 to 2017, working on economic and natural resource diplomacy, and departed as the Chief of Investment Arbitration. Patrick is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center where he teaches courses on international courts and investment arbitration. He has taught at Columbia Law School, Harvard Law School, and Yale Law School. He is on the panel of arbitrators for the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (HKIAC), the Korean Commercial Arbitration Board (KCAB) and the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). He is also on the Executive Committee of the American Society of International Law, on the board of directors of the International Law Students Association (Jessup), is an officer in the International Bar Association’s Arbitration Committee, and serves on the Academic Counsel of the Institute of Transnational Arbitration.
Michael D. Ramsey
Michael D. Ramsey is a Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law, where he teaches and writes in the areas of Constitutional Law, Foreign Relations Law, and International Law. He is the author of The Constitution’s Text In Foreign Affairs (Harvard University Press), co-editor of International Law In the U.S. Supreme Court: Continuity and Change (Cambridge University Press), and co-author of two casebooks, Transnational Law and Practice (2d ed., Aspen) and International Business Transactions: A Problem-Oriented Coursebook (13th ed., West). His scholarly articles have appeared in publications such as the Yale Law Journal, the University of Chicago Law Review, the Georgetown Law Journal, and the American Journal of International Law. He received his B.A. magna cum laude from Dartmouth College and his J.D. summa cum laude from Stanford Law School. Prior to teaching, he served as a judicial clerk for Judge J. Clifford Wallace of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for Justice Antonin Scalia of the United States Supreme Court, and practiced law with the law firm of Latham & Watkins, where he specialized in international finance and investment. He has taught as a visiting professor at the University of California, San Diego, in the Department of Political Science and at the University of Paris – Sorbonne, in the Department of Comparative Law.
Bo Rutledge
Peter B. "Bo" Rutledge is Dean and Herman E. Talmadge Chair of Law at the University of Georgia School of Law. He is the author of the Arbitration and the Constitution and co-author with Gary Born of International Civil Litigation in United States Courts. His works have been published by the Yale University Press, the Oxford University Press, and the Cambridge University Press, and his articles have appeared in journals such as The University of Chicago Law Review, the Vanderbilt Law Review, and the Journal of International Arbitration. In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court appointed Dean Rutledge to brief and argue the case Irizarry v. United States as amicus curiae and he became one of the few advocates to successfully defend a judgment below when the government refused to do so. He served as a judicial clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas at the U.S. Supreme Court Chief Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III on the Fourth Circuit. Dean Rutledge holds a B.A. magna cum laude from Harvard University, an M.Litt. in Applied Ethics from the University of Aberdeen (Scotland), and a J.D. with high honors from the University of Chicago, where he served as executive editor of The University of Chicago Law Review and was inducted into the Order of the Coif.
Linda Silberman
Linda J. Silberman is the Clarence D. Ashley Professor of Law at New York University School of Law and Co-Director of the NYU Center for Transnational Litigation, Arbitration, and Commercial Law. She teaches and writes in the areas of Conflict of Laws, Civil Procedure, Comparative Civil Procedure, Transnational Litigation, International Commercial Arbitration, and International Child Abduction. Professor Silberman has been a member of numerous U.S. State Department delegations to the Hague Conference on Private International Law and is a member of the State Department Advisory Committee on Private International Law. She is a co-author of a leading Civil Procedure casebook (Civil Procedure in Theory and Practice, now in its Sixth edition) and of Civil Litigation in Comparative Context, for which did the chapter on Transnational Litigation. Professor Silberman was the Co-Reporter for the American Law Institute’s Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments: Analysis and Proposed Federal Statute, and she has testified in Congress on judgment recognition on several occasions. She has served as Adviser on three different projects of the American Law Institute: the Restatement (Fourth) of Foreign Relations Law, the Restatement of U.S. Law on International Commercial and Investor-State Arbitration, and the Restatement (Third) of Conflict of Laws.
Aaron D. Simowitz
Aaron D. Simowitz is an Assistant Professor of Law and Director of the Business Lawyering Institute at Willamette University College of Law, where he teaches international business transactions, bankruptcy, civil procedure, negotiation, and a seminar on negotiating and drafting a complex transaction. His research focuses on cross-border business transactions, litigation, and arbitration. Before joining Willamette, Professor Simowitz was a research fellow at New York University’s (NYU) Center for Transnational Litigation, Arbitration, and Commercial Law and a fellow at the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU. He received the Young Scholar’s Award from the American Society of International Law’s Private International Law Interest Group for his work on judgment and award enforcement against intangible assets. He practiced at the New York office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, and clerked for Judge D. Brooks Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
David L. Sloss
David L. Sloss (@DavidSloss6) is the John A. and Elizabeth H. Sutro Professor of Law at Santa Clara University. He is the author of The Death of Treaty Supremacy: An Invisible Constitutional Change (Oxford Univ. Press, 2016) and Tyrants on Twitter: Protecting Democracies from Information Warfare (Stanford Univ. Press, forthcoming 2022). He is the co-editor of International Law in the U.S. Supreme Court: Continuity and Change (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2011) and sole editor of The Role of Domestic Courts in Treaty Enforcement: A Comparative Study (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2009). He has also published several dozen book chapters and law review articles. His book on the death of treaty supremacy and his edited volume on international law in the U.S. Supreme Court both won prestigious book awards from the American Society of International Law. Professor Sloss is a member of the American Law Institute and a Counsellor to the American Society of International Law. His scholarship is informed by extensive government experience. Before entering academia, he spent nine years in the federal government, where he worked on U.S.-Soviet arms control negotiations and nuclear proliferation issues.
Abby Cohen Smutny
Abby Cohen Smutny is Global Head of the White & Case International Arbitration practice, an award-winning international arbitration practice that has been ranked repeatedly as the leading practice globally. She is ranked as a Global Band One practitioner in Chambers and other directories. With over 30 years’ experience, she has handled billions of dollars in claims and has helped clients obtain some of the largest victories in international arbitration. She represents both multinational corporations and sovereign states in high stakes commercial and investment arbitration and works with clients addressing multi-jurisdiction award and judgment enforcement litigation. Ms. Smutny’s leadership positions have included: Chair of the Institute of Transnational Arbitration (ITA); Vice President of the American Society of International Law (ASIL); President of LCIA North American Users Council; AAA Advisory Board Member; Vice Chair of IBA Arbitration Committee and Chair of IBA Investment Treaty Sub-Committee; ALI Adviser on the US Restatement on International Arbitration; Co-Chair of the ICCA Task Force on Standards of Practice in International Arbitration; and Chair International Law Section of Washington DC Bar. She is a member of the Court of Arbitration of the Singapore International Arbitration Centre and a member of ICCA’s Governing Board.
Paul B. Stephan
Paul B. Stephan (@pbstephan3) is an expert on international law, comparative law, international business, international civil litigation, and international dispute resolution, with an emphasis on Soviet and post-Soviet legal systems. He joined the University of Virginia faculty in 1979. During 2006-07, he served as Counselor on International Law in the U.S. Department of State, and in 2020-21 as Special Counsel to the General Counsel in the U.S. Department of Defense. He was Coordinating Reporter for the American Law Institute’s Restatement (Fourth) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States (2018). Stephan received his B.A. and M.A. from Yale University in 1973 and 1974, respectively, and his J.D. from the University of Virginia in 1977. Before returning to Virginia, he clerked for Judge Levin Campbell of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. Professor Stephan has written many books and published over a hundred articles. He is the co-author, with Robert Scott, of The Limits of Leviathan: Contract Theory and the Enforcement of International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2006). His book, The World Crisis and International Law – The Knowledge Economy and the Battle for the Future, will be published Cambridge University Press in 2022.
David P. Stewart
David P. Stewart (@StewartdDavid) is Professor from Practice at Georgetown University Law Center, where he teaches in the area of international and transnational law and co-directs the Center for Transnational Business and the Law as well as the Global Law Scholars Program. He joined the faculty in 2008 following a career in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State, where he served as Assistant Legal Adviser for Private International Law, Diplomatic Law and Litigation, African Affairs, Human Rights and Refugees, Law Enforcement and Intelligence, and International Claims and Investment Disputes, among other positions. He was previously in private practice with Donovan Leisure Newton & Irvine in New York City. He also taught as an adjunct professor at the Law Center for over 25 years. He is past President and current Chair of the Board of Directors of the American Branch of the International Law Association, a member of the American Law Institute, and Co-Reporter for the Restatement (Fourth) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States (2018). He serves on the Board of Editors of the American Journal of International Law and the Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on Private International Law.
Edward Swaine
Edward Swaine is the Charles Kennedy Poe Research Professor at the George Washington University Law School. He teaches and writes in the areas of international law, foreign relations law, and international antitrust. He has published work in the American Journal of International Law, Columbia Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Harvard International Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Virginia Journal of International Law, and Yale Journal of International Law, and has contributed to a number of edited volumes—including The Oxford Guide to Treaties. He is the co-author of U.S. Foreign Relations Law: Cases, Materials and Simulations and served as one of the Reporters for the American Law Institute’s Restatement (Fourth) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States. He is a longstanding member of the Advisory Committee on Public International Law for the U.S. State Department, and previously served as the Counselor on International Law at the State Department.
Symeon C. Symeonides
Symeon C. Symeonides is the Alex L. Parks Distinguished Professor of Law and Dean Emeritas at the Willamette University College of Law, in Salem, Oregon. He is one of the world’s leading experts on conflicts of law. Professor Symeonides has published 29 books and more than 120 articles, some of which appear in Chinese, French, German, Greek, Italian, or Spanish. His work has been cited by the supreme courts of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel. Symeonides has served as president of the International Association of Legal Science, the American Society of Comparative Law, and the AALS Section of Conflicts of Laws, and vice president of the International Academy of Comparative Law. He is a member of the Academy of Europe (Academia Europaea), titular member of the International Academy of Comparative Law, and the Institut de Droit International, life member of the American Law Institute and the Groupe Européen de Droit International Privé, a member of the Order of the Coif and Phi Beta Kappa, and a fellow of the European Law Institute. He currently serves as an Adviser for the ALI’s Third Restatement on Conflict of Laws and as a Supervisor in drafting the Asian Principles of Private International Law.
William H. Taft
William H. Taft V is a litigation partner at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP with experience leading complex commercial litigations and arbitrations for clients across a range of industries, including private equity, sports & entertainment, energy, and commercial real estate. He currently serves as a director of the International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution (CPR), Manhattan Legal Services, and the New York International Arbitration Center, and is Co-Chair of the board of Every Vote Counts, a national student-led voting rights organization.
Peter D. Troobof
Peter D. Trooboff is Senior Counsel in the Washington office of Covington & Burling LLP and specializes in public and private international legal matters. He is a former president of the American Society of International Law (1990-92) and an honorary member of the Board of Editors of the American Journal of International Law. He served for 26 years as a member of the Curatorium of the Hague Academy of International Law and is currently a member of the U.S. Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on Private International Law. Mr. Trooboff was a member of the U.S. delegation to the Diplomatic Conference in 2005 that was convened by the Hague Conference on Private International Law and that negotiated the Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements. Mr. Trooboff received the Manley O. Hudson Medal from the American Society of International Law in 2018 and the Leonard J. Theberge Award for Private International Law from the American Bar Association Section of International Law in 2010. His Hague Academy general course titled Globalization, Personal Jurisdiction and the Internet was published in 2021 as Volume 415 of the Recueil des cours.
Yanbai Andrea Wang
Yanbai Andrea Wang (@yanbaiandrea) is Assistant Professor of Law at University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. She researches and teaches in the fields of civil procedure and transnational litigation, with a focus on the U.S. and China in the international legal order. Her current research takes a geopolitical lens to the enforcement of foreign judgments, international preclusion, and the growing appearance of Americans in Chinese courts. She empirically maps the topography of transnational litigation and analyzes downstream impacts on private actors structuring their cross-border relations. Before joining the Penn Law faculty, she clerked for Judge M. Margaret McKeown on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and litigated at two global law firms. She holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Oxford, a JD from Stanford Law School, and a BA from Princeton University.
Philippa Webb
Philippa Webb is Professor of Public International Law at King’s College London and a barrister at Twenty Essex Chambers. Previously, she served as the Special Assistant and Legal Officer to Judge Rosalyn Higgins GBE QC during her Presidency of the International Court of Justice and held positions in the International Criminal Court and United Nations Headquarters. Her publications include: The Right to a Fair Trial in International Law (OUP 2020) (with Amal Clooney) with the accompanying travaux préparatoires to Article 14 of the ICCPR (2021), Oppenheim's International Law: United Nations (2017) (with Rosalyn Higgins, Dapo Akande, Sandy Sivakumaran, and James Sloan), The Law of State Immunity (2015) (with Lady Hazel Fox QC), and International Judicial Integration and Fragmentation (2015).
Christopher Whytock
Christopher Whytock is Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of California, Irvine, and Co-Director of the UCI Center in Law, Society and Culture. He served as an adviser for the Restatement (Fourth) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States (2018) and currently serves as an Associate Reporter for the Restatement (Third) of Conflict of Laws. Professor Whytock’s research focuses on transnational litigation, conflict of laws, international law, and the role of domestic law and domestic courts in global governance. His scholarship has appeared in law journals including Columbia Law Review, Cornell Law Review, New York University Law Review, and University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and peer-reviewed journals including Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, Theoretical Inquiries in Law, and International Security. His books include Conflict of Laws (6th ed.) (with Peter Hay, Patrick J. Borchers & Symeon C. Symeonides), Research Handbook on the Politics of International Law (co-edited with Wayne Sandholtz), Transnational Law and Practice (with Donald E. Childress III and Michael D. Ramsey), and Understanding Conflict of Laws (4th ed.) (with William M. Richman & William L. Reynolds).
Diego A. Zambrano
Diego A. Zambrano is an Associate Professor of Law at Stanford Law School. His primary research and teaching interests lie in the areas of civil procedure, transnational litigation, and judicial federalism. He also has an interest in legal developments related to Venezuela. Professor Zambrano’s scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming at the Columbia Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Stanford Law Review, and Virginia Law Review, among other journals. After graduating with honors from Harvard Law School in 2013, Zambrano spent three years as an associate at Cleary Gottlieb in New York, focusing on transnational litigation and arbitration.
Joachim Zekoll
Joachim Zekoll is Senior Professor of Law at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. From 2001 to 2022, he held the chair in Private Law, Civil Procedure, and Comparative Law at Goethe University. From 1992 until 2001, he was on the faculty of the Tulane University School of Law, serving as the John Minor Wisdom Professor of Law from 1999 until 2001. Professor Zekoll is an elected member of the American Law Institute and of the International Academy of Comparative Law. He has also served on the Board of Directors and the Board of Editors of the American Society of Comparative Law, and the Boards of Advisors for both the Columbia Journal of European Law and the Tulane Journal of International and Comparative Law. His primary academic interests are in the fields of transnational litigation, product liability law, comparative law, and European Union law. He has published extensively in these fields. His most recent book is Transnational Civil Litigation (2d ed. 2022) (with Michael G. Collins and George A. Rutherglen).