Conference: International Investment and ADR: Preventing and Managing Investment Treaty Conflict (Reminder)

As noted previously, the Washington and Lee University School of Law and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development are sponsoring a Joint Symposium on "International Investment and ADR: Preventing and Managing Investment Treaty Conflict," March 29, 2010, in Lexington. Conference schedule and registration information can be found here. Here's the idea:

The Washington and Lee and UNCTAD Joint Symposium on Investment and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) will bring together academics, governments, practitioners, investors, representatives from international organizations and non-governmental entities from around the world to discuss International Investment Agreements (IIAs) and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR).

The Joint Symposium will be a unique opportunity to generate ideas and explore good practices for preventing, managing and resolving investment treaty conflict in order to facilitate investment and create sustainable dispute resolution systems. The Joint Symposium will consider a broad range of ADR-related issues ranging from dispute prevention, to avoiding dispute escalation, to considering alternatives to investment treaty arbitration, to thinking systematically about designing effective dispute resolution systems. We hope that the Joint Conference will provide an opportunity to engage in networking, brainstorming and collaboration on investment dispute resolution and ADR and generate a set of good practices for the efficient prevention and management of investment treaty conflict.

The Joint Symposium will involve a keynote address and various panels considering issues related to international investment and ADR. Professor W. Michael Reisman, the Myres S. McDougal Professor of International Law at Yale University's School of Law and an international arbitrator in his own right, will deliver the keynote address to place the conference in the requisite historical context and set the tone for future dialogue. Three panels will then explore different themes, such as stakeholders' current experiences with the resolution of investment treaty conflicts, the achievements and pitfalls of the current system, methods for preventing and minimizing the escalation of investment disputes, and the identification of creative strategies for managing investment conflict in both the short and long term.