Applicable Law before International Courts and Tribunals

Speaker: Dr Hayk Kupelyants (Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton)
Chair: Dr Ugljesa Grusic (UCL)

About this event

The lecture will consider the role of the conflict of laws before international courts and tribunals. Very rarely is the conflict of laws examined in academic writings or expressly applied by international courts and tribunals. And that is surprising given that disputes that become the subject of adjudication before investment courts and tribunals are necessarily cross-border in nature. And their cross-border character undoubtedly calls for the partitioning of legal issues among legal systems. The lecture will examine two inter-related issues: 1) which conflict of laws rules international courts and tribunals apply (or should apply) in determining the rights and obligations at the municipal law, 2) what relevance, if any, the conflict of laws has in interpreting international treaties.

About the speaker

Dr Hayk Kupelyants practices international dispute resolution at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton. Before moving into private practice, he was a University Lecturer in the conflict of laws at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Homerton College. He is the author of “Sovereign Defaults before Domestic Courts” (OUP 2018).

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