Chevron case: Ecuador’s defense

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Read UCL Laws PhD student Ira Ryk-Lakhman’s blog about the event

Speaker: Dr Diego Garcia Carrion (Attorney General, Ecuador)
Chair: Dr Martins Paparinskis (UCL)

Co-organised by UCL Laws and  UCL Global Governance Institute and Investment Law and Policy

About the talk

The investment treaty dispute between Chevron and Ecuador is one of the most important and controversial international dispute settlement cases at the moment. In brief, in September 2009 Chevron brought its claim against Ecuador to an investor-State arbitration tribunal under the US-Ecuador BIT. The claim primarily alleges denial of justice by Ecuador’s courts in a domestic dispute relating to environmental and social harms due to contamination resulting from oil production in Lago Agrio region (Chevron’s position on the dispute). The case is still pending, and raises hard questions about international investment arbitration, which are of considerable conceptual and practical importance for everybody interested in the area (be they arbitrators, counsel for States or investors, or academics). Can international investment arbitration successfully address the public elements of private disputes? What is the role of parties, non-parties, and participants in investment arbitration? Can investment arbitration resolve the interplay between different substantive and procedural regimes of domestic and international law? Is ad hoc arbitration an appropriate regime of dispute settlement for dealing with legal and factual issues of such complexity? How do States think and act upon these issues? Dr Diego Garcia Carrion, the Attorney General of Ecuador, will explain Ecuador’s position in Chevron v Ecuador, and answer questions of the audience.

About the speaker

Diego García Carrión was born in Guayaquil, on January 25, 1963. He comes from a family with a long tradition spanning four generations of attorneys and public servants. He graduated as a lawyer in 1988, and earned a Juris Doctor degree from the Universidad Católica Santiago de Guayaquil in 1995, with a thesis entitled “The woman in the Ecuadorian legislation”.

His legal career began in 1998, as a member of the law firm García Feraud & Sons. He provided legal advice in the areas of civil, commercial, banking, corporate, administrative and labour law.

In 1992, he started working in the public service as head of the Legal Department of the Port Authority of Guayaquil, where he served until 1994. From 2000 to 2003 and 2006 to 2007, Dr García Carrión was appointed as Delegate of Dr Gustavo Noboa Bejarano and Dr Alfredo Palacio González, Presidents of the Republic of Ecuador, to the National Stock Exchange Council. Between 2003 and 2006, he served as Associate Permanent Judge of the Administrative Contentious Court in Guayaquil. Between April 2006 and January 2007, during Dr Alfredo Palacio’s administration, he served as General Legal Secretary to the Presidency. During the same period, he also represented the President of the Republic to the Board of Directors of Petroecuador and to the Board of the Deposit Guarantee Agency (AGD). Upon completion of his term and during the Presidency of Dr Alfredo Palacio González, Dr García Carrión was awarded the “Grand Cross of the National Order of Merit”, conferred by the President of the Republic in January 2007.

He was appointed as Attorney General by the Constituent Assembly of Montecristi in April, 2008 until December 2010. On this date, Dr García resigned in order to integrate a shortlist of candidates nominated by the President of the Republic, Rafael Correa, for the same office.

In January 13, 2011, the Council of Citizen Participation and Social Control appointed Dr Diego García Carrión as Attorney General for a period of four years, after having accomplished all the requirements and procedures established to define the shortlist sent by the President of the Republic, economist Rafael Correa Delgado. In January 18, 2011 the Attorney General took office for a period that concluded in January 18, 2015, after the National Assembly positioned as such.

On February 5^th, 2015, Dr. Diego García Carrión took office as Attorney General of Ecuador. He was positioned by the National Assembly for a new four-year period, in accordance to article 235 of the Constitution. Before he took office, the Resolution of the Civic Participation and Social Control Council, dated Thursday January 29^th on which doctor García Carrión was appointed from a shortlist of three candidates sent by the President of the Republic, Rafael Correa, was read.

As Attorney General, Diego García Carrión is also the Chairman of the National Council Against Money Laundering (CONCLA), as well as Chairman of the Mediation Center of the State Attorney’s Office.